


looking at me looking at you

by eidilechsi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Getting Together, LESBIAN SAKUATSU SUPREMACY, Modeling, Mutual Pining, Rivalry, Touch-Starved, Touching, a fair amount of ogling, buT ALSO SO SOFT, god they're so horny for each other, photoshoot, ratet m not for smut but the thirstiest motherfuckers on this planet earth, technically canon if you squint rlly hard, they're girls because i say so, they're jerks, they’re lesbians your honor, well maybe some smut later on lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28592424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eidilechsi/pseuds/eidilechsi
Summary: There's always been a certain tension between Atsumu and Kiyoomi, on court and off it.It's bound to be noticed by others: An innocuous, playful photoshoot following their gold at the Olympics puts them on the radar of Nike and Gucci and Vogue. Suddenly, everyone wants a piece of the hot-blooded spiker-setter duo - and the passion laid bare in their eyes.What starts off reluctantly as a shared modeling contract quickly becomes a careful looking and searching and finally something else entirely.About daring poses, too soft touches and a gaze a lense can't catch. How Kiyoomi gains a plant, Atsumu a cat and both an infatuation with each other.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi, Shimizu Kiyoko/Yachi Hitoka
Comments: 47
Kudos: 125





	1. GOLDEN DUO

**Author's Note:**

> Well there it is, t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶f̶a̶i̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶c̶l̶a̶s̶s̶e̶s̶ my multichapter lesbian sakuatsu fever dream. I've had an intense need for Sappho lately, sue me.  
> This is my first fic and English isn't even my mother tongue so I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I hope you enjoy?? Let me know what you think!
> 
> (also, this was supposed to be a one-shot and it ... developed a life of its own. 5k? 10k? 30? who knows I'm tired and girls are pretty)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well there it is, t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶f̶a̶i̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶c̶l̶a̶s̶s̶e̶s̶ my multichapter lesbian sakuatsu fever dream. I've had an intense need for Sappho lately, sue me.  
> This is my first fic and English isn't even my mother tongue so I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I hope you enjoy?? Let me know what you think!
> 
> (also, this was supposed to be a one-shot and it ... developed a life of its own. 5k? 10k? 30? who knows I'm tired and girls are pretty)

It all starts with that damn photoshoot.

Sakusa had pushed the memory of white lights that were way too bright, hot pink polyester that was way too tight and a smile that was there out of spite into a back corner of her mind. It stayed there until one particular day after practice. Bokuto comes running into the locker room with a grin and speed that are, frankly, unhinged. “It’s out!” In her hand, a copy of Volleyball Monthly is tightly clutched, glossy pages fluttering in the air.

A squeal comes from the direction of the showers.

Sakusa flinches, inwardly shutting out the noise and chatter that has broken out across the locker room. She turns to her locker, waiting for the hectic flurry around Bokuto to move away from the door. In need of a distraction, she finds her eyes wandering about its contents; the small shrine of her favorite cleaning products in the back corner, box of blue disposable gloves on one side and black leather ones on the other, in front of that the collection of her expensive exfoliants, the back of a slim book (17th century French poetry) and a stack of washed and pressed tracksuits wrapped in plastic. She stops the private smile that forms every time she looks at the glowing plastic stars scattered across the top (Hinata’s sister is at fault for them). All of those things are definitely, undoubtedly, infinitely more interesting than a flat reminder of that horrible day.

Hinata shrieks, she honest to god _shrieks_ as she dashes up to Bokuto. “Let me see, let me see!”

Sakusa pulls the zipper on her neon green training jacket up to her chin and curses silently when a strand of black hair gets caught.

Bokuto lets out a boisterous laugh. “Now now, let’s wait for everyone to–“

Atsumu comes running out of the showers, wet hair plastered to her forehead and neck like expired mustard – she hasn’t bothered to wrap a towel around herself. Her nudity isn’t for a lack of towel, however, moreso the absolute absence of shame: Said towel does exist, but Atsumu has flung it across her shoulders that are glistening with moisture. It’s in dire danger of tumbling off her body that is very naked bar for a pair of panties. “Bokkun, lemme see!” Sakusa pointedly doesn’t look at the water droplets running across the flat plane of her stomach. She doesn’t. Neither does she look at the way the muscles in Atsumu’s thighs move, lean, bronze, dangerous, as she sprints across the locker room towards Bokuto who is holding the magazine like a diamond-studded trophy. Atsumu jumps towards the flimsy pages as if they were a ball at match point. Ambushed by her surprise attack, no one in the room does anything to stop her from snatching the coveted magazine out of Bokuto’s fingers with enthusiasm. …Too much enthusiasm, as she inadvertently flings it across the air. It slithers beneath a bench on the other side of the room.

Atsumu lunges after it. Sakusa very much averts her eyes from the curve of her waist and definitely her ass as Atsumu crawls across the floor on all fours, damp towel forgotten next to Meian’s feet, and she doesn’t look at the way her muscular shoulders move, god, her shoulders, and her–

Sakusa coughs and raises her voice. “God dammit, would it kill you to have a shred of human dignity?“

Atsumu stops in her tracks. Without missing a beat she jumps up; sly grin on her face and Volleyball Monthly in between two fingertips, she puts both hands on her waist (crunches the magazine), and cocks her hip out. “Can’t handle my hot bod?”

Sakusa huffs. “I wonder how your _hot bod_ is handling those remarkable levels of narcissism without combusting, you …“

Sakusa awkwardly trails off; Atsumu doesn’t pay attention to her. She leafs madly through the pages until her eyes lit up in victory. “A-ha! There it is!” Her face loses all expression. “Holy shit.”

“What’s happening?” Hinata sidles up beside her, wiry body brimming with energy, craning her neck to get a good look at the spread. “What is it? What is it?”

Atsumu’s mouth hangs open. “I look so _fucking_ good!”

Sakusa rolls her eyes. There it is. She pulls the zipper on her bag, squeezes a last bit of hand sanitizer onto her fingers and goes to throw her locker shut.

“Look at’ya, Shouyou!” Atsumu pats her head. “The gold really complements yer hair, don’tcha think? Bokuto, come ‘ere, oh god, they used the one where ya bite the medal.”

“Tsum-Tsum, that’s amazing, look how white my teeth are! Think Keiji will like it? I’ve gotta text her like right now, she’ll want to see this, do you think she’ll …”

Sakusa, blissfully, is already on her way out, the cluster having moved to Atsumu’s side now, and she has almost reached the door when someone whistles long and slow behind her. “Damn, Omi-Omi, didn’t know ya could look like that. Not gonna lie, those eyes are doin’ things to me.”

She won’t turn around. She won’t. There’s nothing to see there, just the result of a photoshoot that was as boring as it was uncomfortable, it’s just some shiny paper, nothing to–

She turns around. And stares.

A full two page spread is just her and Atsumu turned towards each other. A fox smile sitting on Atsumu’s face, corners of her mouth upturned, sliver of tongue visible as if she was about to say something particularly irritating. Her god damn disgusting mustard colored piss blonde hair is revoltingly beautiful in the gleaming light.

Sakusa frowns down at her. Black around cold eyes, cheekbone catching the light, lips just a barest hint apart. Skin so pale among the ink black waves framing it that it seems to glow. Atsumu, cocky, bratty, daring Miya Atsumu: her right hand curled around Sakusa’s medal, pulling the woman at its end towards her in anything but reverence. Every ounce of smoldering black hatred reduced to nothing by the touch of glee from Miya’s half-lidded eyes. “GOLDEN DUO” above them in bold black letters. Beneath, “ _the jackals’ binary star: spiker and setter, sakusa and miya_.”

“Why’d they put yer name before mine, Omi-Omi?” Atsumu whines.

Sakusa is a little breathless. It’s a good photo. It’s nice. Fine.

(It’s the best she has ever looked.)

She leaves.

///

“Miya!”

“Yea?” Atsumu squints at her phone screen before deciding that it is most definitely too early for this shit. “What’d ya want?” She yawns, rubs the sleep out of her eyes and flinches only a little at the volume of her agent’s voice out of the tinny speakers. “A very good morning to you too!”

Atsumu grumbles something incomprehensible, throws off her blankets (her morning is ruined, anyways) and makes her way to the kitchen, flicking on the kettle with one hand. She wriggles her big toe through the sad hole in her left sock and resists the urge to yawn again.

“I just couldn’t wait! There is a very, very exciting sponsorship opportunity coming your way, I’m telling you, I’m _very_ excited! I forwarded you the email already, go on, check it! Oh god, I’m so proud of you!” Atsumu puts her agent on speakerphone and opens the email app, distractedly wondering where she put the peppermint teabags. She squints, taps “Fwd: Sponsorship offer” and goes to read the first line.

Atsumu drops her phone.

She scrambles to get it on the carpet. “Sorry, sorry. I’m obviously still half asleep, I thought I’d gotten an email from fuckin’ Nike of all things.”

“Read it again, honey.”

She shrieks this time and promptly drops the phone again.

“Are ya bullshittin’ me?” leaves her mouth as soon as she has it pressed against her ear once more. “I swear to god, I’ll kill ya if this is another one of my shitty sister’s pranks or somethin’.”

“Course not! Trust me, I had the same reaction. Nike!” She squeals. “I can’t say I didn’t expect it after the Olympics and your performance this season and all, not to mention that wonderful–“

“Then what are ya doin’ on the phone with me? Go on, email them back, I accept!” She laughs. “Obviously.”

“Yes, uh, I can’t. You see, they specifically asked for a joint sponsorship. You and, well, Sakusa Kiyoomi. You’ll have to talk to her about it.”

“Huh?”

“They saw the spread you did for Volleyball Monthly, just, just read the email, they were talking about, what was it, your amazing connection on and off the court, crackling chemistry, sizzling dynamic, fuming–“

“I got it. Sakusa, huh?” Atsumu pulls the phone away from her ear to frown down at it. She rubs her eyes again for good measure. “Sakusa??” At any other time she might have felt a little bad at the incredulity in her voice.

“They want you both or not at all, I’m sorry. You know, I do get it. That stare, god, how did you not shrivel up and, I don’t know, either die or beg her to let you touch her boobs or something?”

“Right. Sakusa. Omi-kun. Omi-Omi.” She gulps. “There’s no way in hell she’ll agree to that.”

“Are you sure?”

Atsumu thinks back to the day of the shoot. How Sakusa seemed even more irritated than usual, how she snapped at every dumb comment Atsumu made. Now that in itself isn’t anything out of the ordinary, Atsumu lives to get a rise out of that tall aloof block of marble – but that day, there was real heat behind it. Atsumu pulled the thing with the medal to, like, cheer her up or something and distract her from her bad mood, but it obviously hadn’t worked if that look in that picture had anything to say about it. She feels it now still, eyes dark as charcoal and relentless as diamond boring into her, dissecting her soul. She shivers and rubs over the goosebumps on her arm.

“Yeah,” she says a bit distantly. “She fuckin’ hates me, that’s what she does. Can’t blame ‘er, honestly. She won’t do it.”

“Scroll down to the number at the bottom.”

She does and drops the phone again.

///

“Omi-kun!”

Sakusa jumps. That voice is too irritating to not be familiar. “ _No_ ,” she says before even turning around.

“Ya didn’t even know what I ws’ gonna say!” And there it is, Atsumu’s shit-eating grin peeking around the door of her locker.

Sakusa’s tempted to slam it into her face. She instead adjusts the hold of the towel across her chest. “I don’t need to. No.”

Atsumu pouts.

Sakusa sighs. A damp curl tickles her cheek as she lets her head fall back. “Go away. Annoy someone else. I don’t know what you want.” Her eyes flit across the items in her locker. Gloves, gloves, book, balm (vanilla), duck, stars. She pulls a fresh change of clothes out of the plastic it’s encased in and gives Atsumu a sideways glance. “Did you stay back until I finished my shower so you could ambush me in here?”

Atsumu rolls her eyes, crosses her arms and turns her back to her. “I know ya read the damn email.” Her voice reverberates off the blank walls. Her hair is a bit unruly in the back, Sakusa notices. And she could do with a touch-up on her roots.

Sakusa’s towel drops to the floor. “I’m going to spray toilet disinfectant into your eyes.”

“Omi-Omi!” Even turned away from her, the irritation rolls off Atsumu in waves. “Yer always so stubborn to ruin a good thing. It’s goddamn Nike! They want me!”

Sakusa slips on her underwear. “No they don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be standing here.”

Atsumu puts out her hands and begins overhead stretching, grunting softly at the familiar ache. “Whatever, point is I’ll get that sweet, sweet money and so do you, ya idiot.”

Sakusa jumps a little to put on her sweatpants and reaches out for the shirt. “I’m not going to do that. I hate photoshoots.”

“No ya don’t, not when it’s Ni-keee! Plus, ya get to stand next to me all day and do literally nothin’ except exist, and, by the way, get paid a disgustin’ amount’a money doin’ it.” She flips her arms so she can stretch the other side. Sakusa just knows she has a pout on her face. “Other people would kill for the opportunity!”

“Yeah, themselves.” She slips on her team jacket and a new white mask and rubs the towel one last time over her damp hair. “Why would I willingly spend more time with you and your vanity mirror maze of a brain?” She looks down. After a very brief moment of consideration, she picks up her flip-flop and flings it at the back of Atsumu’s head.

The other woman whirls around and fixes her with a nasty smirk. She doesn’t even bother with an insult. “ _Because_ ,” she drawls, “Three weeks ago after the game against the Adlers we went to that new bar, remember? Even you were drunk, and ya usually just sit all depressed on yer stool in the corner. When Shouyou followed Kageyama out the back – god, _finally_ – ya tagged along like the dense fool you are. That jog your memory?”

Sakusa’s eyes widen. “Wait. After Kageyama? So she–“

Atsumu sighs deeply. “Yeah, she wanted to get some. And by _some_ I don’t mean fuckin’ chamomile tea from 7-Eleven at 3 am. Seriously, did you believe her when she said that? How did you not– Didn’t you go to college? You’re s’pposed to be the smart one!”

“So Kageyama and her, did they finally…” She motions a bit clumsily through the air.

Atsumu cackles. “I dunno, they probably looked each other real intensely in the eyes again for a few hours and then cuddled platonically for the rest of the night. Or whatever they’re callin’ it. If they’d come to their senses and fucked, Shouyou would’ve blabbered by now.” She lets out a fond sigh. “I can’t believe how idiotic my stupid babies are. They’re just … stupidly whipped at this point.”

Sakusa curls her lip. “And what does that have to do with anything? I don’t see Tobio in here.”

“Right! Well, anyways, like the good friend I am, I ran after you in turn because yer just as thick as them, apparently, an’ to distract ya I said somethin’ stupid again I think and then you kicked me an’ I fell on the street and when ya turned around again Shouyou was gone.”

“Little fucker runs so fast”, Sakusa mumbles.

“She really does! You ran too, though.” There is a certain glint in her eyes when Atsumu lowers her voice. “To the Audi dealership across the street.”

Sakusa grits her teeth. “I repeat myself. What does your cute bedtime story have to do with anything at all?”

“Ya see…” Atsumu scrunches up her face and makes her voice all deep und grumbly. “Miya, it looks so sharp and clean! Miya, the chrome glints so nicely in the light! Miya, I would pay money for this car to run me over!” Her voice barely contains her laughter.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But ya were like five minutes an’ a storefront window away from masturbatin’ on the –,” she masterfully dodges Sakusa’s fist and holds up a finger, “pristine Italian leather seats, manufactured in Tuscany and processed in Verona.” As she grins, her teeth blink. “The price tag next to the bad boy was a big one, though.”

Sakusa narrows her eyes to slits. “You’ve thought about this.”

Atsumu’s mouth falls open in genuine offense and she splutters for a second before coherent words come out. “Think? No I didn’t fuckin’ think, I saw the word Nike and the number at the bottom of the damn email and every braincell in my head screamed at me to say yes and _how are you thinking about this right now oh my god honestly I can’t stand ya sometimes_. Nike!” She throws her hands up into the air as if that meant anything.

“So when two people tell you to do something, you do it?”

“What the fuck are ya on about, Omi-Omi?”

Sakusa suppresses a smirk. “Braincells. You have exactly two and both are a volleyball just floating around the empty room in there.”

“Ugh! Just say yes. Please!”

Sakusa takes off her mask so Atsumu can see her smile. “No.”

“Oh come on, Omi-Omi! You’d be absolutely drowning in pussy if ya showed up to the club in that ride.”

“I don’t go to clubs, they’re disgusting.” On the topic of disgusting, though. It would be very easy to wipe down the seats, them being leather, she muses. And the car had seat heating, didn’t it? She hums.

“Fair. Well, I’ll … I don’t know, I’ll get yer groceries for a month if ya do it? I know you usually go to the supermarket in like a hazmat suit cause ya hate it that much.”

Heated door mirrors, it had said online when she looked the model up. Automatic … everything, probably. And the legroom, god.

“I’ll get Osamu ta make ya about five hundred of the onigiri with umeboshi cause ya like ‘em so much.”

The headrests (customizable with crocodile leather) had looked so– Sakusa’s mind is momentarily pulled out of its car-induced haze as the words register. She pulls her eyebrows together. “Umeboshi? How do you know that?”

“They’re disgustin’, by the way. But. Groceries? I’ll even wipe down the vegetables and yogurt cups and stuff before putting ‘em in your fridge. Or, or, I’ll get ya a plant, I remember my mom said she had some seedlings?” She scratches her head. “Which kind I don’t really remember, could be an avocado for all I know.”

Black leather seats, smooth and silky black leather seats.

“Or fuck it, I’ll be yer prim personal butler for a week, carryin’ yer stupid wet wipes wherever ya go. Answer me! Omi-Omi! Help me out here, I’m desperate!” She brightens. “What if I tossed only to you for like three practices?”

The poise that car had. The elegance. The raw power it exuberated – unmatched. And the chrome _did_ glint very nicely in the light. Oh how it would feel to grip that wheel. Sakusa shivers.

“Ya know what, I’ll even ask Wakatoshi-san if she’s, like, single and all.” _Black Italian leather_ , a traitorous voice in the back of her mind whispers. _Vera pelle. From Verona_. “I know ya’ve had a crush on ‘er for the better half of a–“

“Fine”, Sakusa says. She clears her throat.

Atsumu breaks off. Her eyes grow impossibly wide. “Omi-omi, are ya–“

“Terms and conditions,” she interrupts, voice firm and tight. She raises a finger. “You don’t call me Omi-Omi.”

“Not fair!”, Atsumu whines, “What, do I gotta be all borin’ now and use the same name the fucking sports commentator does? I thought we had a real connection, O–“

“Second. You don’t touch me.”

Atsumu wiggles her eyebrows. “Wasn’t somethin’ I was plannin’ on doin’. Get yer dirty mind outta the gutter, O- Sakusa! Jeez, you’re makin’ it sound like we’re goin’ in ta film a second-rate po-“

She raises a third finger. “You shut your mouth.”

Said mouth currently hangs open. “How?”, comes an exasperated sigh.

Sakusa turns around and slams her locker shut. She grabs her bag from the floor. “Shut it. I can see your breakfast down there. Eggs?”

Atsumu quickly wipes over her mouth with her sleeve. “How did ya- Wait, no, like, literally how am I supposed to do that. Ya know that’s physically impossible for me, I’ll die if I hafta go for two minutes without tellin’ some stupid joke, ya can ask my family doctor.”

“You either shut your mouth or I’ll have to do it for you.”

Silence.

Atsumu opens her mouth tentatively, falters, then closes it again without having said anything.

Sakusa sighs deeply and pulls up her mask. “Yeah, I admit I set myself up for that one. I’m serious,” she stabs her finger one last time in Atsumu’s direction before throwing her bag over the shoulder and stalking out of the locker room, raising her eyebrows on the way. “ _Behave_.”

She hears Atsumu laugh behind her. “When do I not. My agent will be in contact with yers, then, I assume. See ya next week, beautiful!”

“We have practice tomorrow,” Sakusa grumbles to herself as she walks down the stairs. “Dumbass.”


	2. MAD

It’s next week. Coach grumbly lets them take the afternoon off training.

Atsumu pays the driver, gets out of the car and looks up from her phone. The address they gave them has led her to an older-looking warehouse in an outer part of town. She would be tempted to send off a quick text to Osamu with her whereabouts in case of abduction and organ harvesting if it wasn’t for the number of cars parked in front of the building. Two people are in the process of unloading a large black box that’s very heavy going by their grunts, another woman’s feet are dangling out of an open passenger door. Sakusa is already standing there in the team tracksuit, thick scarf around her neck, half of her face obstructed by the usual mask. She’s leaning back against her rundown VW and absentmindedly twirling the keys around her finger, arms crossed and face turned down; a vision of defense. Atsumu comes to a halt in front of her and smirks. “Well, someone looks happy ta be here.”

Sakusa sighs and stares up at the grey sky before pushing herself off the car. “Please don’t talk to me or I’ll leave.”

“Thought I’d told ya that ain’t an option, Omi-kun.”

“Unfortunately.”

Atsumu stops. The frustration she feels shouldn’t be new. For a moment she wants to just keep on walking, before she grits her teeth. “Christ, I know ya don’t wanna be here and that ya can’t stand me and all that jazz but would it kill ya ta put on a smile at least? Yer makin’ me feel real shitty.”

Sakusa doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest by her outburst. She continues to walk towards the run-down building in silence. Atsumu jogs up to her. “Yes, Miya, I was in the wrong, Miya. I’m sorry, Miya. It actually wouldn’t be that fuckin’ hard to at least pretend ta be nice for once, Miya, I agree it would be best for every fuckin’ one involved, Miya.”

“I signed up to be humiliated in front of a camera, not to play pretend with you.”

“Same fuckin’ thing, Sakusa.”

Her teammate’s feet stutter for the fraction of a second and she glances at her out of the corner of her eyes before snapping her stare forward again. Right as she opens her mouth, the petite woman standing in the middle of the driveway whips up her blonde head. After a blank second of surprise, her features light up. “Hi!” She stops the furious typing on her phone, throws it into her purse and dips into a deep bow. “N-nice to meet you. I-I’m really nerv–, uh, happy to be working together!”

Atsumu puts on a smile as they close the distance. “Well, hello. We’re glad to be here.”

“Very glad,” Sakusa repeats dryly.

Atsumu balls her hands to fists. If the woman notices the tension between them, she chooses not to comment on it and extends a hand instead. When Sakusa doesn’t take it and just kind of … stares down at it, she converts the gesture into a shaky wave. Her voice has gone smaller. “It’s, uh, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you? How’s Shouyou?”

Atsumu steps on Sakusa’s foot, hard. She forces herself to continue smiling. “Ya know’er?” Sakusa stomps back.

“Of course! We went to school together. She was– is, one of my best friends.” She breathes deep and her shoulders lose a bit of the tension in them. “I’m Yachi Hitoka, I was the manager of Karasuno back then. Shimizu-san, our photographer for today, she was actually the one who recruited me for the job.” She blinks and pulls her shoulders back. Atsumu is blinded by the sudden radiance of her smile. “But come on now, let’s get started, I’m excited! I’m sure you’ll do well, you’re both so tall and beautiful!” She blushes. “I, uh … I mean,” she splutters, “follow me?”

Atsumu wants to send Sakusa an amused grin when she remembers that she’s angry at her. And she has every right, too! Why does she always have to be an asshole so openly, the little shit really can’t behave for two minutes, how doesn’t she even–

“Just through here.” Yachi holds the door open. It falls shut behind them with a thud and Yachi switches on the fluorescent lamps. “Shimizu-san and I practically cried when we heard we’d get to work with you on this campaign.” They step into a wide hallway that’s bare expect for a few water stains. Her face is still a bit red. She continues blabbering on which doesn’t do much to mask her nervousness. “The spread for Volleyball Monthly, you know the one, it, uh, it seriously took our breath away, you know? We can’t wait to recreate this kind of energy today! You have something really special going on, I’m not at all surprised Nike reached out.” Her heels are clicking on the floor, the sound echoing through the empty space. Her found confidence makes her walk very fast, apparently, and Atsumu has to hurry to keep up. “Just here now, the makeup team should be ready for you. It’ll take about an hour or two, we’ll be finishing our preparations in the meanwhile.” Yachi draws in a shaky breath and she whirls around. “I’m so sorry the location isn’t the nicest – w-we couldn’t really set up anywhere else, is that alright with you? I-I’m sure you’re used to much … um … much better things! I’m sorry, it was my first time organizing a lot of it but I wanted to–”

Atsumu waves her off. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. You won’t believe the shit we’ve seen on away games.” Atsumu eyes Sakusa from the side; she’s not even mad that she still hasn’t said a word. She’s kind of glad, actually, the kind of offensive shit she’s usually spewing would’ve probably made Yachi quit her job by now. “We’re fine, really, no need to worry ‘bout us.” She resists the urge to elbow her teammate in the ribs. “Right, Omi-Omi?” Sakusa is silent for a moment before she decides on a curt nod; Atsumu would dramatically applaud her for gracing them with it if they weren’t in company.

Yachi beams. “Well then, how about … um, well Ki- Shimizu-san and I will finish setting up while the makeup artists have a go at you. And I’ll send the stylist with the clothes your way so you can look at all the stuff you’d like to be wearing. We want you to be comfortable, after all.” She brushes her hair behind her ears. “W-would that be alright with you?”

“Splendid.”

“Right! Just scream when you need something. Well, until later, then!”

She bounds away in a whirl of blonde hair, Atsumu and Sakusa are left stunned. Before they even have the chance to react, a woman sticks her head out of the doorway to their left, copper curls bobbing up and down. “Are you the models? Come in, come in!”

The next minutes pass in a flurry. Suddenly there’s people, a lot of them, a few yell, some pull at them, others chat them up, one fiddles with Atsumu’s hair and one with her bicep and then some more people pull at them. “Over here we have a rack of potential outfits ready, I’ll give you a few minutes! Our stylist will be with you in a minute.” Someone yanks her in the opposite direction.

She can just nod at “pronounced but natural makeup”, and she smirks and winks at “beautiful muscles” – and above it all, tries and fails not to notice Sakusa’s burning stare glued to her. She doesn’t do a very good job of pretending it isn’t there, either.

The stylist holds up outfits, but the bright colors flit in front of her. Her focus errs from one tracksuit to the other but always back to Sakusa. She’s standing there in the middle of the room, hasn’t taken her mask off yet, her shoulders are drawn up impossibly high. Someone tries to touch her arm and she recoils.

“I, uh, that one.” Atsumu randomly points at something red, her eyes glued to a certain rigid teammate beyond the woman’s shoulder.

She didn’t lie earlier; she does feel a bit shitty about dragging her into all this. She bites at her lip as she watches her disappear into the makeshift cubicle in the corner of the room. Sakusa doesn’t even have the energy to be a brash asshole anymore, goddammit.

When she herself is done changing into a monochrome bright red tracksuit (that looks surprisingly good, if she may say so, her boobs are looking _delectable_ ), and a few assistants are pulling and tucking it to perfection, Sakusa comes back into the room with her street clothes bundled up in her hand, brows tight-knit. Atsumu could probably admire the way the all-dark ensemble makes her look even more tall and powerful and she could probably appreciate how the fabric stretches across her thighs and accentuates her slim muscles and _maybe_ even think about how she wants to run her fingers along those shoulders, in a way a teammate would, of course– She might if Sakusa didn’t look as displaced as a child in the hardware store.

Hot, stark _guilt_ courses through Atsumu at the sight of Sakusa Kiyoomi, fucking Sakusa Kiyoomi fiddling with her fingers and wriggling about with her leg and not really looking at anything or anyone. Fuck, her discomfort really shouldn’t be a surprise to Atsumu – who acted like an ass on top of it. No wonder she didn’t want to come.

Sakusa looks so very small when they plop her into an uncomfortable looking chair, all 189 centimeters reduced to a frown behind a pristine face mask and long arms curled around herself, devoid of any vicious energy Atsumu might become the victim of. She hates it, she hates it so much.

The makeup artist asks Sakusa to remove her mask and she does so with a hasty action that doesn’t hide the tremble in her fingertips.

So Atsumu does the one thing she knows will very much get an emotion out of this husk of a foul teammate.

“Sooo, are ya excited?” Her voice is too loud. Annoying. Perfect.

“No.” Sakusa’s shoulders lose some of the tension in them when the lady rattles off her mandatory little speech about hygiene policy, but Atsumu’s job isn’t done yet.

“Yer prickly like a cactus, Omi. Oh! That’s the plant I should get ya.”

Sakusa is momentarily incapacitated by the giant foundation brush that’s suddenly in her face. She speaks as soon as she can again. “Please don’t.”

Atsumu closes her eyes and relaxes as the woman assigned to her spreads some gooey substance on her face with a quiet explanation of what she’s doing. “Ya like the quiet and thorny types anyways, don’tcha? I’ll ask my mom ‘bout the cactus.” She pops open an eye to glimpse at Sakusa who’s regarding the heap of eye and face palettes laid out on the table in front of her as if it had killed her family.

“Please don’t talk to your mother about me.” She scrunches up her face as the makeup artists brushes off the power residue off her forehead with something resembling a feather duster.

“Too late, I think she–“

“Sorry, but could you please not talk for a minute?” Atsumu’s makeup artist chimes in. She’s a bit red in the face.

Atsumu sinks into her seat at the pure glee on Sakusa’s face. “No need to apologize, miss,” she calls over. “She’s used to hearing that sentence on the daily, more often than not from me.”

“Shut up,” Atsumu grumbles.

Sakusa laughs. “Yeah, that’s what she told you.”

“Actually,” her makeup-artist pipes up as well, “if you don’t want to inhale a whole lot of setting powder right now, I would advise you to close your mouth as well.”

When Atsumu catches Sakusa’s gaze, she almost thinks that a smile is tugging at the other’s lips. She looks away before a grin breaks out on her own face. She doesn’t have time to ask herself why she feels the need to hide it from Sakusa because suddenly Yachi appears behind them. “How’s it going?” She’s blinking a bit too fast and wringing her hands too, so Atsumu tries for a soothing expression for once. By the look that Sakusa shoots her, it’s not working.

“Really well, ya know, we–“

Yachi doesn’t look at her, her eyes are trained intensely on Sakusa, who squirms under the unexpected attention. “Everything okay?” she resorts to asking.

Yachi bites her lip, eyes a bit glossed over. “Ayako-san, I just had a thought. What if you left her little moles makeup-free? You might even accentuate them, I think that would look very nice. They remind me of Kiyoko-san’s.” Her own words seem to register a moment later when she promptly turns fire hydrant red. “I, uh, I mean, well …” she coughs, “come join me in the main hall when you’re ready?” With a squeak she’s gone again.

Ayako laughs. “She’s really something, isn’t she?”

They don’t talk much after that. It turns out that if you do inhale setting powder, you feel it sitting in the back of your throat twenty-five minutes later. And as it also turns out, Atsumu really doesn’t mind the sound of Sakusa’s laughter all that much. Should she? It’s ugly, uncontained and raucous, like a splash of ice-cold water in the face, very ugly. (It lights up her eyes.) Her thoughts are interrupted by her makeup artist lightly slapping her shoulder. “You’re done. You look amazing, by the way.” She reaches for a mirror and, well, she’ll just have to agree. They defined the structure of her face more, put something on her eyes that makes them look huge, and her lips are looking very soft and kissable. She would definitely fuck herself. She hums and turns her attention to her teammate (and no one has to know that her breath gets stuck in her throat a little bit).

Sakusa cautiously angles her head to look at her finished face from all sides in the hand mirror. Her skin is flawless, bright and glowing, the faintest hint of a blush sits on her accentuated cheekbones and lips. They made her eyes dark again, Atsumu notices, glossy grey and black. Are those her natural lashes? Atsumu snaps her eyes away.

When they get to the big hall, they’re surprised to find it half empty; a pair of lights are pushed off to the corner, next to it, a long folding table stands lonely, suffocated by a jungle of cables.

Yachi looks up at them as they enter. “Just go on up to the door already”, she says absent-mindedly while tapping on her tablet, “We’ll be with you in a moment, Kiyoko-san is still arriving. Oh, she’s here!” Atsumu manages to catch her tablet before it can fall to the floor. Yachi stutters out an apology.

The door closes with a thud. A pale woman with dark blue hair swooped up in a ponytail is standing there, camera hanging around her chest, two lenses in hand. Her eyebrows rise when she sees the group of three and she waves a bit hesitantly. Her movements are in their control almost ethereal. Her voice is surprisingly soft. “Good afternoon, I’m Shimizu Kiyoko. I’ll be your photographer for today.” When she comes closer, Atsumu notices that the small mole on the side of her chin really is endearing (and that Yachi seems to think so too, going by the dusting of color that has appeared on the tips of her ears).

She swipes at her blonde fringe and looks up at the taller woman. “Hi! We were just ready to go.” She fiddles with her tablet and avoids the other woman’s eyes. “I … was about to show them the door.”

“Uh, door?” Atsumu dumbly asks.

Kiyoko wears a shy smile. “Yes, we will be shooting outside.”

Sakusa stiffens beside her.

Atsumu coughs. “What does, uh, what does _outside_ mean, exactly?”

Yachi perks up. “Oh! We haven’t told you yet, have we? Well, we’re here because there’s that ancient children’s playground just out the back, very retro, very 80s. The light is perfect for an outdoor photoshoot today, too!”

“Why a children’s playground?” Sakusa asks, voice inscrutable.

Kiyoko clicks her tongue. “Well, we could’ve done a gritty backdrop that’s all cement and ugly and serious and really cliché and then we could have said something about the stark contrast and how well the clothes stand out against it and bla bla, but … we didn’t want to. The clothes are so vibrant and fresh and we didn’t want to take away from that at all! Which is why there’s all these strange concoctions of metal with silly colors out there ready for you to drape yourselves over! I’m hoping you’ll be willing to embrace the location and be a bit goofy with us, and … just have your fun with it.”

“You know…” Yachi jumps in, and she stops fiddling with her fingers for a second. She bites her lip. “Kiyoko-san and I, our most fond memories of high school are from volleyball. Even though I wasn’t standing on the court, I was part of the team, we both were. And that’s what I remember about it – how fun it was. The awe when Tobio and Shouyou’s pulled off a quick attack, or relief when Nishinoya dug out a spike, or, or, god, when we were in the final set and got a service ace in! Even the dread of not having figured out the other team yet, but then laughing at how worked up Tobio got every single time, and … and watching the team fight and grow and always come together in the end. How fun it was.” Her voice is quiet.

Kiyoko doesn’t say anything, just looks at her with a faint smile on her lips. Yachi looks up again and away. She chuckles softly. “Sorry. But … you know. You play volleyball.” She bites her lip. “I think you’ll fit in so well, especially because there isn’t anything childlike about you, sorry.” She giggles suddenly. “There’s something about contrasts. I’m imagining a shot of you two, all legs and muscles, just barely fitting into a swing. Maybe we get to catch you two bickering and being stupid with each other like you constantly do on court. Maybe we get to glimpse that love you have for volleyball.”

Atsumu hums. “Are ya callin’ us childish?”

Yachi’s eyes grow wide and she hastily waves her hands in the air. “O-oh, no! I wouldn’t … no, I just meant…” She trails off at Atsumu’s laugh. She pouts but a small smile is tugging at her lips. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?

“To be fair, you’re very easy to fluster. See!” She points at Yachi’s blush which just deepens.

Kiyoko puts a hand on Yachi’s shoulder at that (and doesn’t seem to notice that that doesn’t improve the situation on Yachi’s cheeks at all). “How about we get on with it?”

They begin to move towards the door, but Atsumu halts when she notices that Sakusa isn’t beside her. She looks back to see her frozen in place, fingers balling into fists and releasing again. “Are ya coming?”

Sakusa looks at her and if she didn’t know better, she would read something like helplessness in her eyes.

Atsumu perks up. “Oh, yeah. I just remembered, I have something for ya!” She roams around in the pockets of her jacket she crammed it into and dangles it in the air in front of her. “I found’em somewhere hanging on the rack when ya went to the bathroom!”

Sakusa takes them, carefully. “They’re gloves.”

“Yeah. Figured ya might like ‘em. So ye’re more comfortable and stuff. They’re from Nike and all, see, there’s the little logo, so there won’t be any problems with the photos … right? ‘s fine if she wears them, Yachi, right?”

Yachi looks a bit puzzled but nods. Sakusa still looks down at the gloves. She finally clears her throat. “Okay. Yes.” She’s not moving.

Atsumu puts her hands on her hips. “What’s wrong? Scared I’ll do better than ya, Omi-kun?”

Sakusa’s head snaps up. “I told you to stop calling me that.”

Atsumu wiggles her eyebrows. “Ye’re not backin’ out on me yet, are ya?” The taller woman’s fingers tremble just barely. “Come on,” Atsumu drawls, “Now I know that my beautiful tan skin looks better in sunlight than yours, ya vampire freak, but no need to panic, if ye’re that concerned about yer good looks I’m sure we can stay in the studio with all those fancy lights that can flood yer bloodless cheeks with some color. Right, Shimizu-san?”

Sakusa pulls on the gloves. “Shut up, Miya. Let’s just get this over with.”

“We do have lights set up outside as well, actually, so don’t worry about your skin, Sakusa-san, it’s flawless anyways!”, Yachi points out helpfully from behind them. “And you won’t believe the things Photoshop can do to you!” They’re already on their way out, and Sakusa finally moves her feet. Atsumu falls into step with her.

“Children’s playground,” she mutters to herself. “Germs, okay. Fine. But if I get a runny nose, Typhus and two different types of rabies, it’s your fault.”

Atsumu chuckles beside her. “Yer always so dramatic. The worst you’ll get is a peanut butter allergy, maybe.”

“Definitely a headache from your incessant blabbering.”

Atsumu smiles at that. She holds open the door. “Come on now. How’d you put it? Time to get humiliated.”

///

The shoot starts out very awkward, to say the least.

They first show them the playground, and it really is very retro and very 80s: Metal tubes in weird shapes and weirder arrangements, colors that a kindergartener seems to have picked out, futuristic-looking swings and seesaws Sakusa doesn’t even know how to describe. She thinks there’s a frog made out of wood over there that you can rock on. It’s very charming and very perfect. Of course, also very rundown and rusty. They’re at the end, still on asphalt; a step separates them from an incoming headache.

Is she supposed to touch these things? Atsumu? She looks down at her hands; remnants of surprise rush up within her at the sight of the gloves. She knits her brows. She has to know.

“Were you supposed to be nice, just now?”

Atsumu freezes and the hints of a smile that played against her mouth disappear. Something indecipherable lies within those deep eyes, but the sharp twist of her mouth is familiar. She takes a deep breath. “Ya know, Omi, I’m not that much of an inconsiderate fuckin’ bitch.”

Sakusa’s eyes widen but Atsumu isn’t finished yet. “I won’t touch ya, for fucks sake. I know it’s not somethin’ ya like, I know you’re not comfortable with it, I never was like that and I’m never gonna be like that, it’s so fuckin’ simple even my little pea brain gets it. Did’ya really think I wouldn’t… Fuck!” She rakes a hand through her hair and looks over to where Yachi, Shimizu and the rest of the crew gape at them. “It’s just a dumb photoshoot. You don’t hafta do anythin’ ya don’t want. ‘Course ya don’t.” She looks away. “‘twas stupid to make ya come anyways,” she mumbles.

Sakusa’s lips part in reply. Nothing comes out.

Yachi interrupts them, eyes wide, clipboard clutched tightly to her chest. “R-ready?”

She looks terrified. Sakusa is too.

“Relax,” Atsumu hisses five minutes later from behind her wide smile.

Sakusa knows she is as rigid as the garishly yellow plastic of the slide she’s standing next to. “Fuck off, Miya.”

She doesn’t bother to move her face out of the scowl it naturally falls into. The other photographer liked it, so why bother smiling as wide and fake as Atsumu. Shimizu is in front of them, taking aim, moving. Yachi is behind her on her tiptoes, she’s holding four water bottles.

Atsumu has sprawled herself halfway up the slide, taking up even more space than usual. She’s almost lying on the thing, arms stretched up and fingers gripped around the edge, one leg dangling off the side and the other drawn up towards her chest. She is bright red, warm and dangerous against the yellow. She looks good.

Sakusa is standing an arm’s length away on the ground. Yachi only told her to stand next to Atsumu, not how close.

“Sakusa-san, could you put out an arm and touch the slide? Right where Miya-san’s head is?”

Sakusa regards the bright worn plastic with something like distaste; she doesn’t move. Yachi laughs a bit nervously. “Or not. Then, uh, how about you angle yourself a bit towards her?” Her voice is too high. “Forget about the camera for a second. It’s just her and you, just you two. We’d like you to, um, interact more.”

 _It’s her and me._ Atsumu is a star, and she’s defenseless against the brightness of it. She’s too close, she can only think, oh god, she’s too close. Her eyes fall shut on their own. Something hot presses to the back of her eyelids. _Fuck._ Why can’t she just–

Atsumu sighs loudly next to her. “Christ, I won’t bite ya. Ya don’t even hafta touch me. Need another stupid pair of gloves to put over those ya already have?”

She looks at them. They’re cool on her skin, leather, simple, sleek. They match her outfit. She’s always been most comfortable in black. Less to see, less to scrutinize.

“ _Omi-Omi_.”

She stretches out an arm and touches yellow. She breathes. This is fine. It’s fine. The seven pairs of eyes on her and Atsumu’s frown remind her that it isn’t fine.

She doesn’t know who suggests “doing some single shots first”, but as she stands next to a watching and writing Yachi and as she tries to ignore the crew members’ stares, she knows that the burning sensation inside her is guilt. No, self-pity. She grits her teeth. Could she be any more ridiculous?

Atsumu drapes herself around the construction like she’d built it. Every position of limb deliberate, each movement conscious, every look right in your face. “That’s good, right?” She looks so arrogant and _so fucking good_. Sakusa is mad.

It’s just touching.

Atsumu looks like she was born in red, a color as bold and provocative as herself. “Ya know, ya can call me Tsumu. We’ll be here a while.” The fabric fits snugly around her chest, sharpens the line of her hip, makes every gesture and every pose bigger, so much bigger. She winks at the camera. Sakusa really is mad.

It’s just closeness.

Atsumu has her head lain against the yellow, and Kiyoko moves closer and Sakusa too, and she lazily looks up at them, a honeyed sun beneath heavy lids. Red cloth bunches up around her shoulders. She buries her fingers in it and _pulls_. Tension. Want. Sakusa reminds herself that she doesn’t have a reason to be mad.

She’s so fucking mad. It’s just being comfortable. It’s just interacting with the world like everyone else does so easily, it’s just­–

“Omi-Omi, come ‘ere, it’s borin’ without’ya!”

She strides without hesitation. Atsumu sits at the bottom of the slide, legs apart, she’s leaning forward with a familiar challenge glinting in her eyes.

“You’re going to lay in my lap,” Sakusa announces. She turns to Yachi and Kiyoko. Their eyes are big as saucers. “She’s going to lay in my lap. You wanted to make us touch. There’s that fuckin’ … rainbow carousel thing over there, right, I’m going to sit on the little bench inside and Atsumu is lying on it too but with the feet thrown over the railing because it’s small, and her head is in my lap. She’s looking straight at the camera.”

“Huh?” escapes Atsumu’s mouth. Sakusa can’t even enjoy the utter bewilderment on her face. Rage is burning inside her. She extends a hand down.

“Oh that’s great!” Yachi chirps from behind them, “Kiyoko, you’re getting this, right? Right? This is amazing, this is what we’ve been waiting for. Gosh, the air between you two! Stay just like that for a second, Kiyoomi. Atsumu, that barely concealed hunger overshadowed only by mild confusion is perfect, yes, oh yes!”

Atsumu stares at the hand. “Huh,” she repeats. Kiyoko’s shutter is going of like crazy.

“I’m sorry.” She isn’t, not really.

Atsumu takes her hand. Oh god, she’s touching her hand, it’s a firm pressure and it’s _there_ and she’s touching her hand and it’s Atsumu, how long has it been since she has taken someone’s hand? _It’s just a fucking hand, Kiyoomi_ , she scolds herself. _Bit of flexible skin on some bones. You’re even wearing gloves. Get it together._ The setter lets herself get pulled up, and all of a sudden she’s standing too close, way too close. Sakusa can’t muster up the energy to care. Atsumu’s mouth hangs open a bit. She has faint freckles. She doesn’t let go of her hand.

Yachi might actually be jumping up and down on the spot. “Oh gosh, that commanding presence of yours! You’re so tall, Sakusa, you’re both so tall!”

And then she’s sitting, and Atsumu is there and she’s so careful, she wants to scream at her, she’s in the middle of lying down, why is she so careful? She stops in the air, feet thrown over the railing, supported by her hand. Sakusa wants to slap it away so she comes crashing down. Instead, she grunts out a “What.”

Atsumu just looks at her. “Is this alright?”

Sakusa can’t bear the earnestness in her voice.

“Come.” She almost flinches at her own tone. “I’m not delicate.”

And Atsumu isn’t either. Her head is heavy, like it has weight. _Stupid_ , Sakusa thinks distantly, _of course it has weight_. The moss green puffy jacket Atsumu’s wearing now crinkles as she nestles her neck around the curve of Sakusa’s thigh muscles, she’s facing up, faintly smirking, mellow provocation nestled deep within in her features. Sakusa frowns down at her. Atsumu moves around; her nose touches her inner thigh. Sakusa muffles a fatal noise in her throat. She notices she’s trembling.

She doesn’t know if the blonde hair is soft, but the strands glide through her leather-clad fingers like silk. Sakusa resists the urge to grip and pull.

Atsumu looks up. Her eyes are wide, and Sakusa’s probably are too. She’s grateful for the buzz of fury in her ears, she tells herself it’s fury, she’s grateful because she doesn’t want to know what she’d be thinking if she could still think.

“Ya smell like moth balls,” Atsumu blurts out.

Sakusa doesn’t quite comprehend the words until she giggles.

 _I could rip out your hair right now_ , she thinks. “It’s probably the clothes,” she says.

“No, ‘m pretty sure it’s just you. Old woman.”

“Do you often find yourself in the lap of older women?” She doesn’t care at this point.

Atsumu grins. A flush sits high on the bridge of her nose. “Thank you. Fer lettin’ me touch ya. I know it’s really hard for you.”

“It’s fine.” And it really is. She does grip a bit tighter, though. Atsumu’s hiss draws gooseflesh across her back.

Kiyoko starts clicking.

It scares Sakusa how fine she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yachi is such a tragically gay disaster, I love her so so much. Also, I found out today that Kiyoko married Tanaka in canon. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.  
> Sorry for the slow updates, but finals are kicking my ass - I'm trying my best. I hope you enjoyed and like where the story is going, thank you for reading! Your comments brighten my day.


	3. FLESH

“Ya like ‘er.” Osamu wipes her hands on her apron before taking a swig of her beer. “Admit it already, coward.” She’s leaning against the counter in her shop. The lights have been turned down, only a bulb illuminates her and her sister’s faces.

Atsumu is sitting on a barstool in front of her. She pouts. “Course I don’t, she’s a bitch!”

“Well you’re a bitch too, and yer still the most conceited whore I know.” Something like satisfaction is laced in her voice.

“I don’t like ‘er.” Atsumu sits up. “I’m tellin’ ya, she’s prickly and cold like a goddamn sea urchin and doesn’t do what I tell ‘er and her smile is so icy and mean, and she’s disgustingly pretty and rubs it into yer face by just _bein’_ there!” She muffles a frustrated scream and rakes her fingers through her hair. “She’s so arrogant, too, and nonchalant about ‘er stupid perfect spikes and serves like they’re nothin’, I don’t fuckin’ like ‘er, okay?”

“Ya’ve been chewing my ear off about ‘er for a good twenty minutes, Tsum-Tsum, how much longer til I hear ‘bout ‘er creamy skin and thick lashes and long legs?”

Atsumu whines. “Fuck, her legs, you should see ‘er legs.”

“I did. Those new team shorts are doin’ wonders for her ass. Yours too.”

“Right!” Atsumu splutters and coughs promptly. “I mean, she’s the ass, a total ass.”

Osamu smiles sweetly.

“Fuck you! I don’t like ‘er. I mean I guess it was kinda nice of ‘er to actually, like, cooperate and shit at the shoot, and the photos turned out great and all, and I thought oh wow, this ain’t so bad, but there’s that one thing she does, Samu, she fixes ya with ‘er hollow stare like yer worse than literal dirt and she doesn’t like dirt, I’ll tell ya that much, and ya can’t even see her mouth but you just _know_ she frowns beneath her mask and what was I saying? Oh yeah, then I remembered why I never liked ‘er.”

“Already talkin’ in the past tense there, ya harpy.”

“She just gets me so riled up!”

Osamu just stares at her. “Exactly.” She sighs and heaves the takeout bags onto the counter. “Cause that’s what ya do for a girl you definitely don’t wanna rail, you go pester yer sister at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday for three batches of onigiri umeboshi, even though your epitome of romance is usually offering yer date a mint in the car.”

Atsumu’s mouth falls open. “I don’t… Samu!” she shrieks. “I don’t wanna fuckin’ rail ‘er!”

“Right, I forgot, yer a bottom.” Osamu snorts. “Ya know, Twitter was goin’ crazy about ya two when Nike released the first press photos. People just drooling all over the place, fancams and thirst tweets and all.”

Atsumu perks up. “Oh? Now where would one, hypothetically, find those–“

“They say Sakusa’s hotter than you.” It’s remarkable with how much smugness one can roll rice.

Atsumu’s world stops. “They say _what_? How _dare_ them.” She whips out her phone, her hands are shaking. “I have to see this.” She violently taps the blue icon. “Fuckin’ _load_ , oh my god.”

“Sure yer self-esteem can handle that?”

“I’ll have ya know that I continuously lead those ‘who’s the hottest msby jackals member’ polls, _by a margin_ by the way, have been for the past years. How could she even–“ She falters. Blinks at her screen. Her mouth falls open. “Bye, gotta go.” She snatches the takeout bags off the counter.

“They’re not wrong, ya know!” Osamu yells at the back of her rapidly retreating head. She doesn’t bother containing her rampant laughter.

Atsumu holds open the door with one hand and huffs. “You just insulted yer own face, ya dweeb.”

“And you didn’t disagree.” Osamu’s whole face lights up. “Oh god, ya really do wanna fuck her.”

“ _I’m goin’_!”

“Say ‘thank you, Osamu!’”

“Ya don’t deserve a thanks, backstabbin’ bastard of a sister.”

“Have a nice evening, thank you for your order! We hope you enjoy your meal, and see you next time!”

Atsumu slams the door shut behind her. “I’ll fuckin’ show ‘er,” she grumbles, mind already running wild with the possibilities. “That’s what I’ll do.”

///

Sakusa’s getting ready for bed when her phone chimes. She spits the rest of the toothpaste into the sink, gargles some water and smooths a last bit of mousse into the little braids she’d put her hair into before padding into her bedroom. She’s in the middle of cheerfully burrowing herself into her freshly washed linen sheets when she reads the message and freezes.

 **hail the supreme ethereal goddess of volleyball** : omi!!!!!!!!!! _22:14_

With a groan, she falls back into the softness of her bed.

 **Me:** Fuck off Miya, I gave you my number for emergencies. _22:32_

 **hail the supreme ethereal goddess of volleyball** : this counts as an emergency!! promise _22:32_

 **Me:** Why do I not trust you when you say that _22:33_

 **Me:** Also, what the fuck did you put in as your name _22:33_

 **Me:** Also……………why are you texting me _22:34_

She pinches the bridge of her nose. She’s tempted to just block the number and go to sleep.

 **hail the supreme ethereal goddess of volleyball** : well, ya know, twitter _22:34_

Sakusa stares blankly at the screen.

 **Me:** No. No I don’t know. Fucking elaborate please _22:35_

 **Me:** Are you drunk _22:35_

 **hail the supreme ethereal goddess of volleyball** : wait _22:37_

_// INCOMING CALL: **hail the supreme ethereal goddess of volleyball** //_

Sakusa accepts. “Go away.” She hangs up.

Her phone instantly vibrates again. She throws it onto the mattress and pulls a pillow over her face in order to scream into it.

The device buzzes incessantly against her leg. She lets out a silent plea before tapping on _accept_ and she shrieks only a little bit when she realizes it’s a video call. “Omi-Omi, ye’re actually talkin’ to me!” Atsumu is huffing and puffing, cheeks a bit red from being outside. She has a stupid, _stupid_ hat on and seems to be half-running along the street.

“What do you want, it’s almost eleven on a weeknight.”

“Oh look, ya even got yer little hairclips and pigtails on, wait, are ya in bed already?”

Sakusa chucks the phone across the room. She faintly hears Atsumu’s “Nooo wait, it’s cute!” as it flies onto the armchair in the corner.

Sakusa reluctantly crawls out of bed and angles the phone back to her face. “I’m going to bury you alive.” She hopes that the dim light doesn’t pick up on the furious blush on her cheeks. “What do you want?” she hisses.

Atsumu opens a door, lets it fall shut behind her and sets the phone down on the metal mailboxes in the foyer with a clang. Her heavy breath echoes in the empty room. “Okay, so, Twitter,” she begins as she digs through her pockets for her keys. “Did’ya know that the people on there think I’m hotter than you?”

“That’s not true,” Sakusa automatically retorts.

Atsumu sighs before throwing her mailbox shut. “I know, it’s so insulting!” she whines as she begins sorting through her junk mail. “Fucking Christ, are these people selectively blind? Do they not see the giant NO ADS sticker on there or are they choosin’ ta be insufferable fuckin’ assholes?”

Sakusa blinks. “Wait, what, they think I’m hotter than you?”

Atsumu’s head snaps up from the flyers. After a bewildered moment, a slow grin spreads on her face. “Wait,” she says, “Omiii, didya just admit that I’m–“

“ _Miya_.” Sakusa wants to shatter her phone on the wall and dig herself into the mattress to shrivel up and die. “Focus. What does Twitter have to do with anything at all?”

“Right, sooo…” Atsumu apparently shoves her phone into her pocket because the screen temporarily blurs and then blacks. The clanging of keys, and the sound of another door being unlocked, something crinkling like plastic.

She could be sleeping right now. “And it was really really necessary to call me right now, was it? You couldn’t wait for five fucking–”

“Omi-Omi!” Atsumu brightens, she’s once again in frame, pulling off her hat. Her hair is a disheveled mess. She flicks on the lights. “Right. So there was these–“

“If you don’t go wash your hands right now, I’m never talking to you again.”

“Chill out, I was just settin’ down my stuff. Oh!” Disorientating swirls of color again, then white. Noises of a tap running. “Just changin’ into somethin’ else!” she calls over from another room. Sakusa’s exasperation is steadily simmering while she stays gone – Atsumu’s stupid grin when she reappears does nothing to quell it. She throws herself onto her couch (dark green, old, squeaks a little). It bounces a bit under the full force of her weight and she looks back up into the camera. She’s wearing a soft-looking tank top with a worn out neckline. “Omi, ye’re still here!”

She wishes she wasn’t.

“Right, well, lemme just…” She clears her throat. “Sakusa Kiyoomi, do you know how gorgeous you are? I want to lick your jawline while you tell me how much you don’t care about me.” She’s peering very earnestly into the phone.

Sakusa lets hers drop flat on her face. “ _What_?” she finally manages to croak out while rubbing her hurting nose and also internally devising fifteen different plans to kill her teammate. “What the fuck is wrong with–“

“Oh yes, your I-hate-everything-myself-included-face is very popular online. Ooh, look at this one: Anyone else want Kiyoomi to step on them, hard, and fuck them after? And a string of random letters. That one’s courtesy of … huh, _hinataswhore._ ”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish with this, but please block my number and never talk to me again.”

“I’m quaking, who allowed Omi to exist?” Atsumu is entirely fixated on her screen, eyes jumping from one corner to the other. She squawks and her voice rises. “Look at precious Tsumu, she’s so done with her life lol, she’s like five inches away from dragging Kiyoomi behind a corner and furiously make out with her? _What_??”

“Why are you reading tweets to me?” She ignores the blush that has risen on her face again.

Atsumu sighs deeply. “Because these are all for you. Well, most of ‘em, anyways.” Her voice drops. “And I want in.”

“Don’t tell me this is about your fragile fucking ego.”

“It is! And ye’re gonna help me. Charlotte Tilbury Cosmetics made an offer, ya know, the expensive fancy-schmancy make-up one, I know ya use their face powder. See it as, like, a challenge or whatever.”

“So your genius plan is looking at the camera like you want to fuck it again. And hope people will see it and want to fuck _you_. Or at least want to fuck you more than they want to fuck me.” Her head is spinning.

“See, I knew ya’d understand. Samu just sent me fifteen crying-laughing emojis and said I was pathetic. You’ll help, right?”

 _No, last time was terrible_ , Sakusa wants to say, but … it actually … wasn’t. Very much surprisingly. After all, Miya was involved. “I would rather lick the locker room showers clean,” Sakusa belatedly adds.

“Omi-Omi!” Atsumu squawks indignantly. “I promise, I’ll do the things I told ya last time!”

Why had it not been terrible? She thinks she even remembers enjoying herself for a bit? No comparison to the disaster of an experience that the Olympic photoshoot was.

“Actually! Look, look, I was just at Samu’s and I brought ya onigiri with umeboshi!” She jumps up and runs to her fridge.

 _Why had it not been terrible?_ Atsumu was a surprisingly considerate partner. Loud, but considerate. And there was just something about her that day that had Sakusa drawn to her. So much so that she didn’t mind being near her. She misses being near people. Leaning her shoulder against another, casually touch an arm or a leg … carting fingers through fake-blonde hair.

“I was gonna give ‘em to you tomorrow at practice because ya never take real food with you, ya know?” Sakusa catches the blur of a few white bags with a blue logo before Atsumu throws the fridge door shut again. “An’ I promise it wasn’t a plan ta like, bribe ya, I got these before I had my genius idea to redeem myself! But that’s what I’m doin’ now, bribe ya that is, please tell me what ya want and I’ll give it to ya! Oops, that came out wrong. Anyways, when’s yer usual grocery run? I can show up an’…”

Sakusa remembers what she did earlier that day – Instagram is still open on her phone. On Atsumu’s profile. It’s as infuriatingly obnoxious as her, of course. Her sticking her tongue out, aesthetic pictures of breakfast, mirror butt selfies (naturally), some very beautiful shots of her in glowing sunlight et cetera et cetera. Her story at all times a loud, confusing mess, kind of like a bad car accident you can’t look away from.

Photos that all carry a certain air of nonchalance, of arrogance, cemented by the fact that there’s about ten thousand comments on each one praising her abs to heaven and back (or asking for feet pics).

She can’t shake off Atsumu’s little yelp, her shock that someone might prefer Sakusa over her – and she’s a little insulted, sure, but she’s also … very much delighted. Oh what she’d give to hear that sound of childish indignation again. Maybe her dignity, for a second time, and maybe she’d let some people take some photos of them in some makeup.

“It’s still a few weeks until the next Adlers’ game, but we…”

And she remembers the photoshoot when Sakusa stood in front of her and _commanded_ her docile attention, how Atsumu looked at her with wide eyes, face slack, and she thinks of certain thirst tweets and an overblown ego and how she could take Atsumu down another notch. “Okay,” she says without thinking too much about it. “I’ll do it.”

Blessed silence on the other end of the call.

She hangs up before she can hear Atsumu’s screech of joy or whatever. She falls asleep with a small smile on her face (and would deny it’s there, of course).

///

Some things might have changed in Atsumu’s life, but volleyball … volleyball is the same. Infuriating, electrifying, addicting, her first true love, and she’ll never let it go.

Inunaki digs out the ball with a grunt. Liquid fire shoots through Atsumu’s veins, and her attention is magnetically drawn to a certain spiker – who’s already looking at her. Their eyes lock.

She leaps before her brain can catch up, and Sakusa does too. The slam of the ball on the other side of the court is deafening. The sound of a whistle.

A roar sounds next to her, and Atsumu pumps both her fists in the air in triumph. She swirls around. “Omi-Omi!” Her scream is barely audible over the thunderous cheers of the crowd. Even Sakusa allows herself to laugh, swept up in the ecstasy of winning a game. She holds out a hand in the air and before Atsumu can think, she goes for a high-five. Her palm is sweaty and burning hot and – Atsumu blinks – Sakusa’s hand is in hers. The world continues around them.

The spiker is looking at her with _something_ in her eyes, mouth hanging slightly open and the frazzled mess of a ponytail framing her sweaty face. “Miya?” she prompts softly. Atsumu feels like blushing violently when she realizes she hasn’t let go of Sakusa’s hand, and instead clamped her fingers around it. She drops it as though it burned.

The ghost of presence lingers.

Shouyou jumps up at Atsumu screaming in her ear and their eye contact breaks.

But the feeling remains, later in the izakaya, when Sakusa sits next to her and doesn’t pull back when their thighs touch, and smiles at one or two stupid jokes and uses her withering stare only once when Atsumu knocks over a lone glass with water and some drips onto her pants and fuck, Atsumu’s palm still burns. She thinks they might become friends.

Sakusa’s all of those things she told Osamu, she’s prickly and nonchalant and doesn’t do what she tells her, and she’s also sometimes nice and always frustrating, but Atsumu thinks she might just like her that way.

///

Sakusa hasn’t thought about how much bare skin would be involved in shooting a makeup commercial, of all things. Of course Atsumu wouldn’t have a problem to strip down right next to her – for fucks sake, she already raised the hem of her shirt. Sakusa ignores the red lace peeking out from under the stretchy waistband of her sweatpants. She _does_.

She sighs deeply. She really doesn’t know how she landed herself in this situation.

She’s thinking at the moment, very hard, as they hand them the bathrobes and show them the way to the showers. “Just come back here when you’re done, we’ll get you ready,” the assistant chirps. She’s thinking as she washes the suds out of her hair (lemon-scented) and as she ignores Atsumu’s skewed singing in the stall next to her, and she hasn’t stopped thinking when they set them down in two plush chairs in front of a huge mirror wall and the blonde’s robe slips off her shoulder revealing a creamy patch of damp skin. _She’s thinking_.

She desperately clings onto the chaos going on behind them; her eyes flit across the mirror from yelling production assistants to a lanky woman setting up the lights, to Yachi entering and– _Yachi??_

The blonde bounds up to them as soon as she spots them. “S-sakusa-san, Miya-san!”

Atsumu shoots her a lazy grin. “Hitoka, I thought I’d told ya ta call me Tsumu.” Yachi’s eyes widen. “What are ya doin’ here?”, she tacks on. “I’m _delighted_ to see ya.” Sakusa wants to smack Atsumu.

Yachi blushes, of course she does. “W-well, um, Kiyoko and I got the job, we’re photographing you two once again.”

Atsumu’s features light up. “What, no way!”

Yachi shyly nods. “It’s our pleasure. I’m very happy with the way the last shoot turned out.”

“Oh us too, definitely, right Omi-Omi?”

She curtly nods, because it’s true. Yachi looks at her with something like relief. “That’s, um, that’s good to hear! Kiyoko is over in the wardrobe, she’ll come say hi in a bit too.” She catches Sakusa’s eyes in the mirror und winces; all of a sudden, the cheerful expression drops. She starts fiddling with the hem of her skirt, avoiding their eyes. “S-Sakusa-san, please, um, we know that last time, there were some problems.” She pulls her eyes up, taking a deep breath as if in preparation for a big speech; but they catch on something in the mirror and she freezes. “Wait a second, please?” With that, she’s gone again.

 _What the fuck_ , Sakusa mouths to Atsumu who just shrugs. Some problems? Oh god, are they going to berate her for being stiff and awkward? Sure, it hadn’t been ideal but she pulled herself together, right? And she wants to do good today, but what does ‘good’ mean for them? Will they force her to touch Atsumu more? She doesn’t think they would, but what the fuck does _problems_ mean?

She’s pulled out of her thoughts when Yachi comes back. She has Kiyoko in tow. Atsumu opens her mouth in greeting, but Kiyoko side-steps her for Sakusa who starts slightly. “Good morning.” Sakusa has to concentrate a bit to make out her voice over the noise of the hall. Yachi seems to grip her forearm more tightly as she dips into a deep bow. “I wanted to apologize to you on behalf of the team! We were not aware of the toll the last production took on you.” She comes up again, a bit red on the cheeks but determination in her eyes. “We hope you’ll find it in you to forgive us and talk to us today about what makes you comfortable.”

Sakusa is at a loss for words, for once. _They’re_ apologizing? Even though she’d been a drama queen and not cooperative and well on her way to ruin the job? “Um. It’s fine.” She scrunches up her eyebrow when a thought occurs. “Wait. How did you even–“

“ _Anyway_!” Atsumu jumps in. For fucks sake, how loud can one woman _be_. She’s smiling brightly. “What do ya have in store for us today?” She tilts her head. “Are ya gonna make us look pretty?”

Yachi just stutters and Kiyoko narrows her eyes. Curious. “The new palette we’re promoting is called _celestial bodies_ , so you can imagine what concept we’re going with. Sun and moon in space: You vibrant and bold, Miya, and Sakusa as your just as beautiful, but cold and distant counterpart.” She pauses. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“It’s funny a bit, you know. You two are constantly gravitating around and towards each other anyways.” Yachi’s eyes crinkle when she giggles. A weight has been visibly lifted off her shoulders. “Oh, I just thought of a title. Sunset. Because, well, that’s where sun and moon meet and also because … _set_.” She bites her lip. “Sorry. I won’t bother you with any more of my stupid puns, we’ll let the makeup artists get to work. Sakusa, you’ll probably get a very smoky look, a lot of blue and black, and for you Tsumu, I think they’ll use up an entire pan of bronzer. Just come over when you’re ready!”

The makeup artists are looming in their periphery like vultures. Well then.

///

Atsumu is a bit nervous. A bit.

This is Sakusa Kiyoomi she has to shoot with. And yes, sure, they did the Nike thing, but that was outside and Sakusa had gloves on and they were just standing around and glowering at each other a bit (except for that _thing_ in the carousel; she doesn’t know what the hell that was), so that was … fine. This is makeup, this is skin, this is intimate. As intimate as a room with twenty people can be. Still, she catches herself stealing glances at her teammate, back rigid and straight, hands folded neatly in her lap. A blush threatens to rise when she thinks of that lap and who had lain in it three weeks ago. She feels the ghost of rough fingertips carting through her hair. _Stop it._ She focuses on how ridiculous, definitely ridiculous and not at all cute Sakusa looks like this, intense smoky eye and murderous stare, frown on the lips and … curls pinned back with pink hair clips. It reminds her of that video call, her already in bed like a sensible human being, with two adorable little pigtails on the sides of her head that made Atsumu want to pinch her cheeks and– She blinks and stops _that_ train of thought. She wants to call out to Sakusa and say … something, but she catches the familiar charcoal glower. _Don’t you dare_.

She smirks lazily and raises her hands defensively as if to say _what? I’m not doin’ anything_ , except she would very much like to do something, which is laugh hysterically at grumpy, frigid Sakusa Kiyoomi in a baby blue fluffy bathrobe.

The smirk is wiped off her face when they bring out the clothes. She’ll be wearing a simple skin-tight red dress, but Sakusa, oh Sakusa.

Dark hair brushes against the collar of a crumpled white dress shirt. It’s a bit oversized, and Sakusa would look soft if she didn’t look this hot. Light cloth dips into the valley of her cleavage, collar hanging open in something like an enticing invite. Sakusa furrows her brows and unbuttons the cuffs, crinkled fabric pulling back and revealing pale skin. A personal little constellation of moles peeks out.

Atsumu has some difficulty breathing all of a sudden.

She watches her furrow her brows as Yachi approaches them with something white in her hands. “We remembered that Atsumu got you to wear gloves, and, well … if you’d like to, we had some made for you.”

Sakusa stares at them.

“They’re silk, almost see-through with little Swarovski crystals. Ideally, you two would be very close, but of course you don’t have to be. This is just something to … help. All around.”

Atsumu internally breathes a sigh of relief. She has asked herself how difficult today would be, and stuff like this would certainly help with Sakusa’s aversion to tou–

“I don’t want to wear gloves.” Atsumu’s head snaps up. Sakusa doesn’t look at her. “I know it’ll look better without them. I can do it without them.”

“Are you sure? I’ve said it before, but we want you to be comfortable. That’s most important to us.”

“I’m sure. I can touch her like this. I will.” The slight wobble in her voice betrays her. Atsumu wonders if anyone but her picks up on it. Sakusa nods again, so determined it almost looks harsh. _What has gotten into her?_

The setup is simple. A tall box decked out in draped velvet, dark blue, a loveseat in the same color. Muted fairy lights are strewn across it like stars. It’s breathtaking. Kiyoko chuckles. “Good, right? Just wait until we have you two beauties in there. Just standing, for the moment.”

Atsumu wills herself not to blush at the compliment and takes a step forward. Yachi quietly orders the woman at the lights to do something to them, but she can’t for the life of her pay attention to anything that isn’t Sakusa Kiyoomi who is right behind her. _How is this going to go?_

Sakusa comes to a halt a bit behind her, between them a measured distance. They just watch each other for a few seconds.

Some people are coming at them, touching up their makeup, their clothes, position them closer to the lights, angle their limbs, and Sakusa is still looking at her.

“What?” Atsumu finally bites out. She shouldn’t have come here. Last time probably was a stroke of luck. She’ll be uncomfortable again and blame it on her, rightly, and they will lose the tiny bit of progress they made in their almost-friendship and why did she think this was a good idea? Her thoughts are spiraling, which is probably why she’s taken completely off-guard by Sakusa’s next words. “You know, you can touch me.”

Maybe her mouth falls open. “I … do?”

“Just … just… _gah_ , can I?” Sakusa bites her lip. Atsumu’s neck hurts from being craned back over shoulder but she’ll be damned if she misses even a moment of this. Her eyes must be impossibly wide – she doesn’t have the energy to care. Sakusa moves, and she’s suddenly _close_ , so close. Atsumu’s breath hitches. She wills it to continue. It’s Omi, just Omi. She gulps. It’s Omi.

Atsumu watches her long pale fingers tremble as they reach out, tentatively, shy. How often has Atsumu looked at them before? Receiving, giving, meticulous, brutal, bony and pale and long, and they’re inches away from the bare skin of her shoulder. It takes a long moment for her to remember that Sakusa asked a question. “Yes,” she breathes. Sakusa holds out a few seconds longer. Her chest is rising and falling in an erratic rhythm that matches her breath.

“You don’t have to,” Atsumu murmurs softly.

Their skin makes contact.

Atsumu almost hisses at the feeling of careful finger pads on her. Sakusa’s touch is feather light, and trembling, but she doesn’t withdraw it. Her eyes snap open. Atsumu drowns in the black mirrors.

They both release a heavy breath at the same time. “Okay,” Sakusa says, as if she wanted to reassure herself. “Okay.” After a moment of lingering hesitation, she removes her hand. Atsumu almost whines at the loss. But–

Sakusa is still there, looking, considering. “I will try something. You try not to go berserk.” White fabric rustling, her arms part in invitation. An invitation that can’t possibly be for her, but it is, _it is_ : Sakusa steps up to Atsumu and very carefully wraps herself around the other woman from behind. The impact knocks the air out of Atsumu’s lungs.

“Is this alright?” she whispers.

Atsumu can only shiver as hot breath ghosts over her neck. Sakusa is cool and soft and oh god, she burns to the touch.

Click.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god no. Sakusa is an unyielding force behind her, pressing into Atsumu’s bare shoulder blades – white shirt so thin it might as well not be there. She’s caged, she’s trapped, she’s done for.

Sakusa has her right arm slung across Atsumu’s chest, holds onto her upper arm in a way that could almost feel possessive. And her left, her left has settled in the curve of her waist, inching at supple flesh. “Is this fine?” Her voice wavers a bit. A black curl brushes over Atsumu’s clavicle. She distantly registers Yachi jumping up and down, clipboard clutched to her chest. Kiyoko is clicking away.

She lets out a shaky breath. “Yes.” She can’t even be embarrassed about the way her voice breaks.

Then, Sakusa nuzzles her chin into the crook of her neck. She’s going to die. There is no camera, no people around her, no ground even beneath her, just hot blood pounding in her ears and a soft mouth inches away from her throat. She’s going to die, she’s sure of it.

“It better not be too much. You accepted a challenge.”

Is it too much?

When Sakusa talks, her lips brush over the side of her neck. They’re just barely sticky from the gloss; Atsumu wants them to linger, to stay, to fucking ravage her. _What?_

“Miya?” Had Sakusa asked a question? “You with me? Yachi asked you to relax.”

“I’m relaxing.” She’s not. Sakusa moves her hand up; her thumb runs over the skin of her inner arm. It’s callous and considerate and everything Atsumu has ever wanted to feel in her life. She’s screaming internally. She doesn’t think Sakusa has a hint of an idea of what she’s doing to her. What _is_ she doing?

“Lean back into her touch,” Kiyoko supplies. “Angle your head towards her. Yui, adjust the lights. We want her face to catch all of it.”

“You’re the sun, Atsumu, remember.” Yachi’s voice is a bit breathless. “Why are you biting your lip?”

She longs for the bitter taste of metal on her teeth; she desperately needs something to ground her weightless head. She lets it fall back, bares her throat. A sharp intake of air next to her ear. Her head knocks against Sakusa’s. She tries for a blinding smile, she knows it comes out strained.

“Dial it back, Miya,” Sakusa hums. Her chest is pressed flush against her back; she can feel the timbre of her voice deep in her core. “Think about … a late summer evening. Heat still simmering. You want to bask in it.”

Some people in the room are whispering to each other.

“Imagine it’s getting dark,” Sakusa murmurs. Her arms tighten around her body. “I’m coming for you.”

Please do, Atsumu wants to say, please do. Would Sakusa be the type to leave hickeys? She angles her head; their breaths mingle. Would she be cautious, teeth just grazing, running smooth lines across skin? The grip on her arm stiffens. Or would she mark up her throat in purple bursts like it belongs to her?

“You really do smell like lavender,” she says. _What?_

“I thought it was moth balls.” Some of Sakusa’s hair glides across her shoulder as she talks. Their temples touch. Atsumu swears she can feel sparks flying.

“What do I smell like?” It’s an effort to talk.

“Cheap deodorant,” Sakusa says without missing a beat.

Atsumu barks out a laugh. “Sexy.”

“Actually, no. I think there’s also a distinct note of I’m-going-to-kill-this-photoshoot-and-you-afterwards.”

“Don’t act like this is my fault.” Familiar irritation crawls up her spine. So Sakusa’s playing dirty. Oh, she’ll show her dirt.

She melts into her grip like butter; doesn’t miss the stutter of breath. She drags up her hand, catches Sakusa’s wrist in an iron hold. Her fingers dig into pale skin, pinky sliding in between cool fabric. She’s reaching up with her eyes, up up up, until her nose brushes a cheekbone. She’s wearing red lipstick; she could smear it across flawless skin. She shudders at the thought. She’s counting flickering eyelashes like this. She smiles.

_I’ll give you a challenge._

Atsumu grabs sinewy flesh, a thigh that flinches at a touch that is less caress than collision. Raw power beneath her fingertips. She thinks she might be flying.

Something rumbles deep in Sakusa’s throat. “Can I still change my answer? I’m thinking more of how-do-you-like-this-then?”

Sakusa lets go of her arm, but oh, at what cost; long fingers reach for her face like Icarus, but they don’t burn, they do not fall, they cradle her cheek gently. A thumb ghosts over her lower lip. Atsumu can only turn her head into the touch.

A tattered sigh escapes.

The studio is dead silent.

Atsumu’s hand uselessly hangs onto Sakusa’s cuffs, fingers limp, no more than an accessory. Her eyes are a black sea, and she’s pulled under in the maelstrom. She can’t breathe.

“Atsumu,” Sakusa whispers. If Atsumu angled her head just so, they would kiss. Her lips, they are right there. “Smile a bit more, you’re the sun.”

But it’s not about the smile, it’s not about a smile, it’s about the blazing heat engulfing her being and swallowing her whole. The fever that’s burning from the tips of her toes to her tingling scalp and tightening just so.

She’s scrambling for purchase, hand coming up and burying itself in Sakusa’s curls. They’re so soft she wants to cry. Sakusa Kiyoomi has soft hair.

It’s her turn to grip and pull; Sakusa yields. Eyes fluttering shut as a tiny groan comes deep from her throat.

Atsumu is honestly and truly fucked and every person in the room knows it.

///

As soon as Sakusa closes the door behind her, she crashes.

What the fuck what the fuck _what the fuck_.

What is she _thinking_? Is she?

That first touch doomed her. _Warm_ beneath the tips of her fingers, just out of reach and yet … right there. Firmness hidden by velvety skin. A tremble to a tremble.

Something surged within her at the contact, something electric and roaring and all-consuming, something that made her lose her mind. Greed, she realizes now, it was greed. To feel that smooth softness again, _grasp it_ , dig her fingers into it until it gives.

How long has it been since she has touched someone?

She thinks of deep eyes and a half-smile, she thinks of freckles you can only see when you’re so close that the tip of your nose touches a reddened cheek; she thinks of biting into a delicate earlobe.

She buries her face in her hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might notice I added the tag "they're so horny for each other", I'm sure you can understand why. :D  
> Fuck, this was so fun to write. What's not so fun is being a dumb bitch and deleting your master document and subsequently losing almost 10k words..........I'm fine, I'm really fine :))))))))  
>   
> ...............*deep sigh* the things I do for my dumb volleyball gays.  
> Hope you enjoyed, see you next time I need to procrastinate on my studies!!


	4. VORTEX

Atsumu bursts into Osamu’s shop. She rips her headband off, sweat-damp hair flying, and rakes a hand through the strands. She’s heaving, eyes flitting across the room until they find her sister. She marches up to her like a woman on death row. “Well this was a fuckin’ mistake.”

Osamu hums. “Her arms?”

Atsumu whimpers and drops down onto a stool. “God, her arms. She put them around me, and her … her h-hands.” She swallows. Wants to grab her sister by the apron and shake a coping mechanism out of her. “Listen, Samu, please, fuck, listen, I’m done. I’m comin’ from the shoot, I was out runnin’ for two hours an’ I’m still thinkin’ bout the shoot, there’s that stupid launch party thing we got invited to by Nike and they asked us to arrive together and now she’s comin’ to pick me up in a few hours and I’m panicking, because I can’t stop thinkin’ about ‘er stupid _chin_ of all things! What the fuck! She put in on my shoulder!”

“And?”

Atsumu explodes. “And? And _what_? I’m dyin’, Samu, fuck, have some compassion!”

“What am I supposed to say? Congratulations, you’re gay?”

“I’m bisexu– Fuck, that’s not the point! Samu, she’s _comin’ to pick me up_!”

“So go and put on a pretty dress.”

“She’s gonna look me in the eyes and _know_.”

“Then don’t look her in the eyes.”

“Impossible, they’re like black holes, the things, they pull ya in and consume ya, don’t ever let ya go.”

Osamu sighs deeply. “Ya know what, you deserve this. I’m goin’ in the freezer.”

“I deserve this? _I deserve what?_ Osamu!” she yells at her sister’s retreating back. “What do I deserve? You fucker!”

“Calm down, oh my god, there’s customers in here.”

“Didya know that ‘er fingers are a bit raspy and coarse and that when she touches you, ya don’t want her ta stop? She smells like lavender, you know?”

Osamu hasn’t gone into the freezer yet. She looks like she regrets it. “I didn’t.”

“Well now ya do. If ya ever need ta. Samu, _she’s coming to pick me up_.”

“And I said, go and put on a pretty dress.”

So she does, and it’s two hours later and she burned her fingers on the curling iron and ripped her nylons but she doesn’t have any others and her dress is too tight, did she gain weight? And she’s fiddling with her phone, why is the battery so low? She drops the fucking thing when a text message comes in.

 **grumpy cat:** I’m outside. _17.43_

She takes deep breaths. It’s just a stupid chin _,_ she tells herself when she has calmed down a bit. It’s not particularly pointy or soft and there’s no reason she should be thinking about it this much. She releases her hands from the fists she balled them into. _You horny motherfucker._ Her phone vibrates again.

 **grumpy cat:** Christ, come down already, I’m cold. _17.49_

Atsumu fumbles for her keys, almost forgets to put on shoes, doesn’t even double-check her hair in the mirrored elevator (which should be a first sign that she’s irrevocably distraught). She bursts out the door, greeting on her lips, but all words die in her throat. Her spinning thoughts collectively come to a screeching halt. Sakusa is wearing a suit. Atsumu blinks. _Sakusa is wearing a suit._

She looks up from where she’s leaning against the car, imposing in sleek shiny black, and she frowns at Atsumu’s expression. Her curls are styled back, lain to perfection. _Eyeliner._ “What? Something wrong with my clothes?” She pulls at her collar.

Atsumu snaps her mouth shut and clears her throat. “No,” she finally gets out. She should be embarrassed about the way her voice breaks. “No, they’re fine.”

They’re more than fine.

_Sakusa’s wearing a suit._

It isn’t tightly fitted but clings to her in all the right places. Tantalizing emerald fabric hangs off her frame as if its sole purpose in life was to worship and serve Sakusa Kiyoomi, born on March 20th 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.

She seems taller like this. Atsumu unconsciously wets her lips and nods again. She’s searching in the crevices of her mind for something annoying to say. “Got dolled up all for me, didya?”

Sakusa just squints at her. “Get in, we’re already late.” She looks her up and down and pushes herself off the car. “You look nice too, I guess.”

Atsumu’s lucky that Sakusa already has her back turned to her because her following spluttering is wholly undignified. _You look nice too, I guess?_ Atsumu somehow manages to open the passenger door, mentally three solar systems away. Sakusa might as well just have proposed to her. You look nice too, I guess! She tells herself to chill out, because telling each other that they look good is something that friends do, right? Right? _Deep breaths, Atsumu, deep breaths, don’t look at her chin, deep breaths._

Wait, are they friends?

Atsumu is still standing; she observes the other woman sliding into the driver’s seat. “I thought you were just gonna call a taxi or somethin’.”

A rare smile tugs at Sakusa’s lips. “You know about the unspeakable things I did for this car, least I can do is show it off. Get in.”

The car smells of citrus, of course it does. “It’s actually kind of– Ooh, these leather seats are really nice!”

“Right?” Sakusa’s face brightens in delight before she remembers herself and schools her expression back into the familiar scowl. She takes off the jacket and throws it into the backseat. Atsumu follows the movement with her eyes. The black shirt stretches over her arm muscles. “Don’t eat anything sticky or crumbly – actually, don’t eat anything in here at all.”

The car starts with a purr, thrumming under their feet. The seat heating comes on, followed by the radio. Some classical thing. Atsumu clasps her hands over her mouth and gasps in mock astonishment. “Well I’m wet.” She wiggles her feet in the generous foot room, giggling.

Sakusa just sighs and rolls up her sleeves, fumbles with the buttons since she’s wearing gloves again. “Also, don’t open the door while driving, don’t put your feet on the dashboard, please fasten your seatbelt properly.” She secures a hand on the back of Atsumu’s headrest and cranes her head back over her shoulder for a better look as she reverses onto the street. Time is going by in slow motion. Sakusa’s eyelashes cast faint shadows over her cheekbones. A hint of perfume wafts over to Atsumu. _Fresh lavender._

Talking is hard. “I’m not a kid, you know?”

“And be careful not to look at your Nintendo DS for too long or you’ll get dizzy.”

Sakusa’s forearm muscles are definitely not the reason Atsumu has difficulty coming up with a retort. “You’re funny.”

Sakusa snorts, now looking back at the road in front of them. She’s a good driver, but then again, what did Atsumu expect. “What’s gotten into you now?”

“What, I can’t be nice?”

“No. Not to me, at least.”

Atsumu bites her lip and leans forward. “So I can’t tell ya that ya look _ravishing_ in a suit?” She hopes the teasing lilt in her voice buries her absolute earnestness beneath.

“Shut up,” Sakusa grumbles, but there’s a dusting of pink on her cheeks. Atsumu sinks back into her seat with an accomplished smile, almost jumping at the sudden comfort enveloping her. “God, these are actually amazing. Doin’ the sponsorship with me was totally worth it, huh?”

“Depends on how much I want to kill myself tonight. You’ll be there with me, so…”

“I’ll prepare yer funeral.” – “I might actually be fine.”

Atsumu whips her head around. “What didya just say?” They both talked at the same time. It’s entirely possible she misheard the words coming out of Sakusa’s mouth. It is, in fact, plausible and also highly probable.

Sakusa just stares ahead onto the read, a perfect picture of indifference. She bends to look through the side window before taking a turn. “Nothing. I said nothing.”

Atsumu blinks. “We’re totally friends, aren’t we. Admit it.”

She stops at a red light, thrums her fingers on the wheel. Silence spreads in the car. Atsumu refuses to look away from the other woman, suppressing the giddy feeling in her chest. When she still doesn’t answer, her gaze slides down. Sakusa opened the top buttons of her shirt, her tie is hanging loosely around her neck. The fabric pulls back to reveal a tiny sliver of pale skin, nicely framing– _Her face_ , Atsumu reminds herself. _Her face, which is the only thing I’m looking at._

Sakusa glances at her from the side, growing uncomfortable under the demanding pair of eyes. She admits defeat with a deep sigh and breaks the silence. “No kids, we’re not stopping by McDonalds.”

Atsumu distracts herself snickering, slumping back into her seat. “You would totally be the type to order a single black coffee and continue driving, too. …What? You don’t know that bit? I’ll hafta show ya his Netflix special, he’s like, so funny. Do ya even know what a joke is, Omi-Omi? They’re these crazy things, you should really check’em out, you basically…”

///

Before she’s ready, Sakusa has to pull up in front of the hotel where the reception is held. Bulbs are already flashing outside the tinted windows and she hesitates before opening the door. The sudden flares of white make her eyes hurt. She quickly drops the keys into the valet’s outstretched hand. Oh god, why is it so loud? Questions are thrown their way but their agents had stressed not to answer – just look good. Not a great feat for Atsumu who has already gotten out, throwing her hair and shoulders back and greeting the onslaught with a brilliant smile. Her deep blue dress melts to her frame, silk sleeves accentuating toned muscle, wide black belt pulling focus to the waist of an athlete, deep V-neck making her chest look all too plump and pert. Objectively.

She’s oil in water like this: fluid, shifting from pose to pose like it’s natural, yet it’s distinctly _her_ , emerging at the top unfazed. Sakusa rolls her eyes when she coquettishly draws a hand down her chest. She doesn’t even try to emulate anything like her energy, just stands up straighter, lets a stoic gaze wander over the crowd. Atsumu had said people liked her stern, right?

Once the gaggle of photographers moves on to the next car pulling up, Atsumu starts smoothing out some wrinkles in the silk. She bends down to pull at her fishnets which, Sakusa notices, are ripped at the back of her thigh, laceration baring toned muscle, stretching up to the hem of her–

She makes her way around the car. Atsumu comes back up again and quickly wobbles in her high heels, intuitively stretching out a hand to steady herself with Sakusa’s arm – Sakusa, who jerks back. They both freeze.

Atsumu’s smile dims. “Right. Let’s get this over with.”

Sakusa curses herself out in her head as she follows the clicking of black heels. Great. Now Atsumu thinks that they haven’t made any progress, that the morning had been a fluke, just her pretending. Nothing more than Sakusa rising to the challenge. But then again, it … had been … that, right? The demon of competitive ambition possessing her, causing her to … touch Atsumu in this way. There was no underlying want or desire, because … well, because…

Atsumu is prancing beside her into the ballroom. Sakusa identifies a stage with a pair of armchairs beneath a giant screen, enormous colorful bouquets set to the side, chandeliers blitzing. People are mingling on the floor and at the standing tables draped with white cloth, waiters flitting through the crowd with trays of appetizers and drinks. Atsumu eyes the generous bar, rows of too expensive alcohol above polished mahogany. “How many people do ya think we’ll hafta talk to today?”

Sakusa is surprised to see Atsumu ask that question, but she can’t respond because there’s already the first ones coming at them. “Miya-san, Sakusa-san, do you have a moment?”

Atsumu breathes in deeply before she whirls around, wide smile on her face. “Always for you, Takane-san! Weren’t you the one who interviewed us back then when Hinata and Sakusa joined the team?”

Some people around them turn and stare, but they quickly disperse as soon as Sakusa frowns at them.

Atsumu has fallen into a conversation with the woman holding the microphone. “…well, yes, it was very much surprising that people seemed so taken by us!” She winks and Sakusa rolls her eyes before she remembers that cameras are trained on them. “Very flattering.”

Takane nods excitedly, ponytail bouncing up and down. “I believe I speak for everyone when I say that upon first opening your spread in Volleyball Monthly, my heartbeat quickened for a second. How do you keep such amazing energy on and off the court?

“Easy. We hate each other just a little bit.”

Laughter ripples through their little audience and Atsumu sends a wide grin their way.

“And the good things just kept on coming, gosh, that Nike collaboration came out of nowhere. You two certainly didn’t disappoint! Here on the screen we have some of the promotional pictures of you two donning their new outerwear. Do you want to tell us about the making of?”

In the photo, Atsumu is hanging onto an iron bar with both hands. Her feet are dangling a few inches off the ground, posture nevertheless exuding perfect poise, just a cheeky smirk thrown down to the woman standing sideways next to her. Sakusa is leaning back onto the support pole, legs endless in the simple black tracksuit. Her face is angled up to the stretched out form of the woman above her, lips on the brink of open.

“What did Sakusa-san tell you right there?” She giggles. “Something you can say on camera, I hope?”

 _Please fall_ , she’d mouthed up to her. Atsumu had radiated a simply staggering amount of confidence, she’d deserved it.

“Eeyore here told me that if I continued ta grin like that, she’d find a way ta bend the pole around my neck.” Sakusa glances at her face out of the corner of her eye. Nothing but honest excitement is to be seen on there. Her cheeks are a bit flushed, her eyes sparkle.

The interviewer laughs a bit confusedly. “Look at those biceps, um, I certainly don’t doubt that she could!” Sakusa tenses when the camera zooms in on her arms, the fabric of her suit rustling. A new photo appears. They’re sitting side by side in two respective swings, Sakusa straight and upright like an adult who respects themselves would – next to her, Atsumu sways sideways in her seat, one leg propped up on the seat, the other hanging freely. She’s grinning, of course, had grabbed onto one of the chains holding Sakusa’s swing, pulling it towards her, the whole thing tilting. Sakusa is looking murderous, naturally (and pretty too, she has to admit; why hadn’t she asked Yachi what eyeshadow they’d used?). “Here, Omi-Omi asked me my mental age and offered to let me play with her little cousin who’s four.” Wrong. This was when Sakusa had actually offered her a handmade chained choker.

Another photo. Both of them spread out in a nest swing that is too small for them, Atsumu’s hands folded behind her head, looking just barely to the side where Sakusa is laying on her stomach. Her head is craned back over her shoulder, curls covering half of her face; two dark eyes are piercing the camera. In red and black, they’re a stark contrast against the washed out colors of the playground. The whole concept Kiyoko had come up with is working really well, Sakusa has to admit.

“Is there a special story behind why you’re wearing gloves, Sakusa-san?”

Sakusa almost jumps, mind forced back to attention, but Atsumu is faster, she smiles evenly. “Looks cool.”

“Just that?” The interviewer’s eyes are too sharp.

Atsumu’s eyes light up and she points at the screen. “Ooh, I like this one! Artsy.”

They’d climbed onto a tall pyramid constructed of ropes and knots, both contorted into some weird shape, both kind of hanging and standing at the same time. The camera is placed at their feet, they’re looking down at it, the billowing fabric of their clothes taking up almost half of the picture. Atsumu looks relaxed like this, head tilted back, hair flying in the wind, glowing gold in the light. Sakusa would almost call her ethereal if she wasn’t _Atsumu_. Sakusa is almost groundingly solid at her side, a sharp force in black.

She can’t deny that they look good together, like … partners. There is of course tension there, but the kind of tension that photographers call a _dynamic_ , the kind that they want. And then – the carousel, the world around the two a blur. The intensity of both Atsumu’s and her own eyes almost burning her retina. Her fingers twitch as if they recalled how easy those blonde strands were to tug at.

“Now Miya-san,” the interviewer teases. Sakusa forgot she’s there. “This certainly looks interesting. Do you want to tell us about the relationship you two have developed? Something … more going on here?”

“Oh, no.” She laughs a bit airily. “We’re just having fun.”

“Sakusa-san, what do you have to say about that?”

She can just blink, mind all of a sudden yawningly empty. To be honest, she hadn’t intended to talk to anyone but Atsumu today. And now there’s all these microphones and cameras and people expecting _something_ from her. She looks at the screen again, leather buried in blonde.

“I really like pulling her hair, it makes her shut up,” she settles on.

Atsumu makes a choking sound, and Sakusa just lifts an eyebrow in her direction. “Then again, a bit of eyeliner seems to do that too.”

She doesn’t understand the sudden glint in Takane’s eyes who licks her lips and leans closer. She tucks a strand of shiny black hair behind her ear. “Would you like to elaborate on that?”

Sakusa blinks. Frowns. “No.”

God, when will this be over? There’s too many people watching her, _recording_ her, she can feel their presence coming too close, and the smells, too much perfume, sickly-sweet. Her fingers tremble for the mask in her pocket.

The interviewer seems barely fazed. “Well, you certainly can’t fault us for being curious about what goes on behind the scenes – you two make for an intriguing pair. Atsumu, can you tell us something about Sakusa that no one else knows?”

She involuntarily stiffens. God dammit, if Atsumu starts blabbering about her stupid issues now, she’ll leave, she’ll literally turn around and…

“She’s hidin’ a yellow squeaky duck in ‘er locker, right behind her fancy cleaning foam, it’s the cutest thing!”

“That’s not true!” Sakusa instantly yelps.

Atsumu regards her with a pointed look and a raised eyebrow.

Sakusa hangs her head. “It’s pink”, she mumbles.

Atsumu laughs and leans closer to the camera, at the same time shifting in front of Sakusa, obstructing her view. “Anyways, I know you’ll ask Omi-Omi to tell you all about my deepest darkest secret next, but I wouldn’t trust her to look after my cat for an hour even, I’m telling you, the two felines would end up with one eye combined at the end of a babysitting session. So I’ll have to whisk her away, but if you really want to know about that one time I _really_ fucked up, I’ll leave you with three things: sixteen-year-old Miya Osamu, her favorite aloe very shampoo and my genius combined with a funnel. I might’ve been the twin that popped out first but she beat me to the bleached hair bit, let’s say that much. I’ll see you later, Takane. I have some really pressing questions about Sakusa’s alcohol tolerance that demand my immediate attention.” She shoots finger-guns, winks and turns, not without flicking her hair over her shoulder. Sakusa follows her, offering a lazy wave to the cameras. She almost wants to smile at their big eyes and slack jaws, not yet acquainted with the whirlwind that is Miya Atsumu.

They’ve weaseled their way through to the other end of the room and evaded sweaty executives, too pretty models and eager journalists before Atsumu talks again. “Thank god we’re alone.” She hides halfway behind a curtain, scanning the bar ten feet away from them. “I fuckin’ hate these vultures,” she finally mutters, and Sakusa turns to her in something like surprise.

“But you’re always so nice to them. You laugh at their stupid jokes.”

Atsumu grimaces. “Yeah, that’s kinda the point. Maybe I hate ‘em _because_ I hafta laugh at their stupid jokes.”

“You could just … not? I don’t.”

Atsumu looks back at her with a smile that is almost sad. “Yeah, ya don’t. But not everyone has someone else ta do it for ‘em.” She catches her sleeve with two fingers and tugs. “Come on, there’s a whole table with champagne over there.”

///

For Atsumu, the evening passes mainly with her noticing that her own laugh is too unrestrained for poor sober Sakusa and also her not caring at all, blaming the frequent smiles she gives her on the alcohol. Some people make them talk, many complement them, too many send knowing glances their way. Atsumu tries not to look too dejected at those – Sakusa’s flinch earlier told her all she needed to know. She hadn’t known how good of an actor Sakusa actually is. To think that she had harbored a tiny spark of _hope_. She doesn’t dwell on just how much her little captivation is unrequited and instead demolishes the champagne tower. The haze of bubbly white-gold makes everything more tolerable.

At some point, Sakusa grabs her wrist und Atsumu can just look up, dumbly, and blink. “Ye’re touchin’ me.”

“Come on, let’s get you some fresh air. Your Kansai dialect is getting worse.”

She pulls. Atsumu stumbles after her.

Less and less people bother them as the evening progresses, none from the media. It’s just some fans or producers or whatever that are striking up conversation with them, but even they leave quickly. It might have to do with the devastating stare that Sakusa is distributing very generously, and Atsumu tells her as much.

“Don’t lie, you’re glad for my bitchface.”

Atsumu stops. Looks at the bitchface. With her heels, they’re almost the same height. “I think I want to squish your cheeks. Can I do that?”

“No.”

Atsumu smiles. “That’s what I thought.”

They somehow make their way onto a small balcony by the side of the building, and it’s nothing short of a relief. Atsumu deeply inhales the scent of frosty grass and rubs over her arms. The chilly air is making the hairs stand up. Sakusa stands so close she can feel her body heat.

“You never told me you had a cat.”

Atsumu yawns. “I don’t. Fuckin’ bitch doesn’t know that. An’ Osamu hates aloe vera, by the way.”

“You’re very rude, but I’m sure that isn’t news to you.”

Laughter pearls up to them from the garden. Atsumu leans over the railing and Sakusa grabs the back of her dress to yank her up. Her gloved fingers linger for the fraction of a second at the nape of her neck. Atsumu tells herself that her shiver has to do with the cool night.

“That’s something you would do, jump off a balcony while drunk.”

“Oh definitely. I w’s fine the last two times.”

Atsumu imagines it were her and Sakusa walking through the carefully curated flower beds and hedges. They wouldn’t talk much, she thinks, maybe just roam side by side. An image of intertwined hands flashes in her mind. She sighs internally. She’s always sappy when she drinks champagne, and horny too – Sakusa doesn’t deserve to be at the end of it. They’re friends, she reminds herself, even if Omi hasn’t admitted to it yet, they’ve fallen into something comfortable that can be called friendship.

But comfortable, can she call it comfortable? She’s happy they’re friends, really. Now if she could just … get rid of this ridiculous infatuation of hers. She blames Sakusa’s stupid chin, how it had fit so perfectly into the crook of her neck. Like it _belonged_. So much so that she wouldn’t have to do much, just tilt her head to close the space between their– fuck, she’s doing it again. She wants to cry; Sakusa doesn’t even like her. _Oh right, champagne makes me emotional too._ She tells herself to knock it off. Crybaby.

Sakusa’s voice pulls Atsumu out of her haze. “You know, I’ve got one.”

Atsumu thinks very hard. “A bitch?”

“A cat. She’s a bitch, too.”

Atsumu’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “What’s ‘er name?”

“Anastasia.”

“Of course. Color?”

“Black.”

“ _Of course_. Didn’t expect anythin’ less from ya.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno, ye’re just a very has-a-black-cat-named-Anastasia type person. I bet she’s spoiled rotten.”

Atsumu could look at that shy little smile all day. “She is, I hate her.”

“The other cats at the playground probably talk shit behind ‘er back. Ugh, she’s such a single child. I heard her mother got ‘er _caviar_ for her birthday.”

“They’d be absolutely correct.”

“Did’ya really?”

“Of course not, you can’t feed your cat caviar.” She pauses. “It was filet mignon.”

Atsumu throws her head back and laughs. Something inside her wants to flutter free. “Do you wanna get out of here?”

“And what? Get dubious sushi and cheap beer from the cornerstore and feast on it on the curbside?”

“You know, that does sound amazing.”

Sakusa looks down at her, head inclined. She smiles a bit. “It really doesn’t.”

“We, uh, we could go back to my place? I promised ya back then I’d cook for ya, r’member?” She awkwardly gestures around in the air. “Before … stuff. Already asked my mom ‘bout the cactus, by the way. I suppose ya don’t wanna go get a week worth of groceries right now and Ushiwaka ain’t here either so I’ll just hafta cook, don’t I?” She scratches her head in thought. “I probably still have some chicken and broccoli in the freezer, don’t tell me ya don’t like broccoli, or I could do potatoes? It’s really up to–”

A cold hand on her wrist stops her mid-sentence. Atsumu stares at it. Sakusa blinks. “Do you want to see my cat?”

The ride over to the apartment is silent. Street lights pass them periodically, light up Sakusa’s near white skin in flashes. _You do look like the moon_ , Atsumu wants to say, but she’s too tired to move anything but her eyelids that are fluttering shut. The car hums quietly.

“Falling asleep on me? We don’t have to go to mine.”

 _I’m not goin’ home until I’ve seen yer pussy, Omi-Omi_ , Atsumu distantly thinks. She sniggers to herself. _Yeah, as if._ God, she should stop being so terminally horny. Is she drunk? She yawns. She’s probably drunk.

The rest of the ride passes in a blur. Her head grows more heavy by the second and – has Sakusa always looked like a frowny little angel? Cherubim, or whatever. She remembers that her hair is very soft. She would like to touch it again.

She must’ve zoned out or fallen asleep or something, because next, she jerks up from where she was slumped against the mirror in the elevator, on her cheek an imprint of cool glass. The yellow numbers of the display go up and Atsumu watches them change with fascination. She absentmindedly wipes over her mouth to check for drool and only then notices with a jolt that Sakusa is quietly studying her. “Are you sure you want to come in? I can drive you home if you want.”

The elevator dings. “I’m not scared of yer cat, Omi-kun.” Atsumu walks out into the corridor first, swaying on her feet just a little.

The keys clink in Sakusa’s hand as she comes to a halt in front of 104. “Scared? No. Be careful, though. She’s a criminal.”

A slow smile stretches across Atsumu’s face. “Oh? A criminal. What’ll she do if I’m not careful, then?”

Sakusa doesn’t move a muscle. “Steal your heart.”

Something tugs at said heart like a string, pulling Atsumu forward into an ocean of exhilarating uncertainty. It takes a few moments for her to be able to formulate a response. “Well it ain’t a crime if I consent to it, now is it?”

“That’s the thing, you can’t consent. She deceives you. Entices you with big eyes and a soft purr so you give her food and scratch her belly and there you go, you’re in love! But then you _live_ with her and she’s moody and mean and doesn’t let you cuddle, and screams at two in the morning, god, and laughs at you when you stumble over your own feet and wreck the coffee table. She’s a bit of a cunt, really.”

The string around her heart has tightened and caught on fire. Atsumu remains breathless. “But ya love ‘er.”

The key slides into the lock. There is something so very soft in Sakusa’s eyes. “Of course I do. Come in.”

It’s not the string anymore, it’s her heart that is ablaze. And it’s not uncertainty anymore she drowns in, but the knowledge of inevitability. Atsumu has to force her eyes away or Sakusa would be able to read something in them that she doesn’t even know herself yet.

They’re interrupted by a soft growl.

Atsumu gasps at the wiry body attached to bright yellow eyes that are blinking up at them. “Hi kitty, you’re so tiny!” she coos.

The black ball of fur takes one good look at her, yawns and turns back around. The tip of her tail disappears into a doorway.

Sakusa barks out a laugh at Atsumu’s pout. “Told you she’s cold.”

Atsumu seethes. “Gimme one hour. Just one hour, and she’ll eat out of the palm of my hand.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“Ya never have faith in me, Omi-Omi!”

“I don’t have faith in anything concerning this little demon. You can put your jacket down over here.”

The air smells faintly of laundry detergent. Atsumu slips out of her heels, sets them down neatly in the shoe rack and massages the ball of her foot. Sakusa has laid out a pair of slippers for her. She pads into the kitchen behind her. The layout is simple and clean, the bright lights of nightly Osaka pouring in through the vast windows. She sees swift paws scurrying into the living room and smiles. “Well if she’s anythin’ like her mommy, I’ll just continue ta make stupid jokes until I’ve annoyed her into acceptin’ my presence.”

“Very begrudgingly, might I add.” Sakusa in her suit looks almost too big for the kitchen, as if displaced, like she doesn’t know what to do with herself with those fancy clothes in front of the timeworn rice cooker. “Do you, uh, want to take a shower? You’ll be here a while if we’re making food.”

Atsumu scratches the back of her head. “It would sure be nice, and ya probably don’t want me rubbin’ dirt and sweat and all sortsa things all over yer couch cushions. Just, ah…” She grimaces and motions down at her ripped tights and short dress.

“Oh! Of course.” Sakusa blinks. “Yeah, I’ll … lay out some stuff in the bathroom.” Her voice is a bit too high.

“Thanks.”

They stare at each other for a second before Atsumu ducks her head and flees into the living room after the cat. “Does she like chicken?” she calls over her shoulder, already looking around. “She probably likes chicken. Do we have chicken?”

She thinks she can see a tiny black void huddled in the blankets on the armchair. She wants to go after it, but a sudden grasp on her bare arm holds her back. Rough, calloused fingertips, a warm palm, firm. Sakusa, who mumbles: “Go shower first. I’ll let you cuddle all you want later.”

And if Atsumu presses her forehead to the cool shower tiles for a solid five minutes while resisting the overwhelming urge to _scream_ , well, no one has to know.

///

Atsumu comes into the kitchen wearing one of Sakusa’s ratty sleep shirts. It’s a bit too big on her, coming down to her mid-thigh, the worn-out neckline sliding off her shoulder. It makes her look all too comfy and soft and _familiar_. Sakusa’s mouth dries out.

“I found some stuff for a stir fry,” she croaks. “I’ll, uh, go for a shower too. I’d ask you to start cooking without me but I’m not sure you won’t burn down the kitchen.” She has to go. Atsumu smells of her bodywash.

“I’ll have ya know that I’m a great cook!” Her hair is damp, and some persistent remains of mascara cling to her lower lashline. Her eyes are still bright. “But I think I’ll go pester Anastasia fer cuddles first, I have that hypothesis about ‘er.”

“Hypothesis?”

Atsumu’s eyes flit to Sakusa’s hair, whose hand instantly comes up. The curls feel like they normally do, maybe a bit stiff from the gel.

Atsumu’s face grows fond. “Oh no, nothin’ for you to worry about, Omi-Omi. Just go, I’ll try an’ seduce yer cat in the meanwhile.”

“Please don’t do that,” Sakusa says, already halfway out the door.

Atsumu cheerfully waves her off. From the way her eyes are glossed over, she seems to already be deep in thought. _For once,_ Sakusa sniggers, stepping into her bathroom. She halts in her tracks. It’s been a while since she has thought anything mean about the other woman, actually. Now, she seems to be more concerned with her smile, and the dip of her neck and oh, her shoulders. Oh no. She stares at her alarmed reflection in the mirror and tries not to panic. Oh no. But it’s fine, she’ll be fine. She’ll just go shower, and then she’ll go back and look at Atsumu in her home, in her clothes, with her cat in her lap, and she’ll … she’ll probably combust. Oh no.

She finds Atsumu on the couch, half-asleep, a tired hand cradling soft black fur. Anastasia, the traitor, is serenely purring. As if she sensed both Sakusa’s presence and indignation, she pops open a yellow eye and proceeds to purr even louder.

Atsumu looks up, blinking herself back to cognizance. “Oh,” she says, voice rough and a bit disoriented, and Sakusa’s insides tighten. “Hello,” she murmurs back and eases down onto the cushions next to her, lifts up the blanket to steal some of the warmth.

“I’m concerned, Omi-Omi.” Atsumu’s voice is quiet. Sakusa snaps her head up, but exhales when she finds mirth glinting in those eyes. “Are ya givin’ her enough love? She demanded mine as soon as I pspsps’d her. Pretty much jumped at me.”

Sakusa bites her tongue lest she say _You should come over more often, then._

Atsumu carefully holds out an armful of mildly inconvenienced cat, leaning into Sakusa’s space doing so. “C’mon, hold yer child.”

Atsumu has tiny freckles on her collarbone. “No,” Sakusa manages to get out. “You can keep her for a bit. She’ll let you know when she wants to leave. Her scratches are mean.”

Atsumu plops a delicate kiss onto a blinking head. “I can’t believe ya called ‘er a demon. Nothin’ but slander, look at this angel baby.”

“She’s doing this to spite me,” Sakusa just grumbles. “Cuddles in your arms. Pathetic.”

No, of course that isn’t something that Sakusa herself would want. Why would she want to exist with and around Atsumu, sated only on her presence, with those firm hands holding her, a careful thumb running over the expanse of her back? Be looked at with this kind of delicacy, be the reason for the gentle smile pulling at her lips? Why would she want that?

“I think we should go make food,” Atsumu mumbles, but she doesn’t make a move to get up. Anastasia pushes herself closer into her palm. They both stay and look at her curled up form in Atsumu’s embrace, her eyes already falling shut again.

“Omi-Omi?”

Sakusa hums.

“What did you think about today? When they photographed us?” Her voice is too quiet.

Sakusa stays silent for a while. “I don’t think I thought of much at all. Something overcame me, I can’t describe it.” She lifts a hand, strokes Anastasia’s paw who in turn tenderly digs her tiny claws into her index finger. She smiles a bit distantly. “I was lost, to be honest, helpless. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and then all of a sudden it was all too much. It’s…” _It’s been too long since I have touched someone._ She releases a shaky breath. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. There was just _someone_ there, and I was allowed to touch them, and I … did. But of course there was a person, and it was you, and… I’m sorry. I looked back and asked myself if that really was me. I realize I overstepped a boundary.”

“Ah.”

Atsumu doesn’t say anything more and Sakusa looks down at her fingers that have stilled. For a minute, she’s trying to work around the knot in her throat. “Don’t get me wrong, I liked it.” Liked it all too much. “I’m glad you convinced me to get out of my shell. Convinced me to … become friends.”

Atsumu doesn’t respond and hot tears well up in Sakusa’s eyes. She wants to say that she’s sorry, she wants to say so much more than that, that she was overwhelmed beyond her grasp _because_ it was Atsumu, that she wouldn’t have touched anyone at all if it hadn’t been her. And that she is sorry because Atsumu _is_ a person, a wonderful person, and she– is asleep. Atsumu is asleep.

Her warm body slowly grows slumped against hers, a reassuring weight that is nestling itself into the curve of Sakusa’s frame. She moves her arm to make space, lets her fall against her – puts it around Atsumu’s shoulders to hold her steady. Wisps of unruly hair move together with soft puffs of breath. Atsumu murmurs something incomprehensible and presses closer. Sakusa resists the urge to let careful fingerpads dance over closed eyelids.

Atsumu is asleep.

Sakusa dares to speak. “I can barely remember a time when I haven’t been like this. It started when I was a child, and I was unable to … to do things like normal people do. I started wearing gloves, later a mask, and then I was retreating, not slowly but all at once, and then I was …” She trails off, looks at her cat, curled up into a ball, still caressed by Atsumu’s slack fingers. “It’s gotten better, I’ve gone to therapy, and volleyball helps, all the exposure in college, and I have … it’s … it’s not bad, I can do so many things now I wouldn’t have dared five years ago. So many things, but not … being close.” Tears well up in her eyes. “I think I forgot how to touch and be touched.”

Atsumu stirs at her side and Sakusa snaps her head down. Did she… She thought she was asleep.

Clumsy fingers wander over the cozy expanse of the blanket, prodding, searching, curious, until they find hers. Atsumu’s hazy mumble emerges from the thick fog of slumber. “It’s easy.” And she takes her hand and falls back into the embrace of sleep.

And Sakusa stays, wide awake, heartbeat pounding in her ears, tingling from head to toe. Atsumu’s fingers are shorter than her own, rough on the fingertips; a tiny bit sticky. She knows that because they’re … they’re in hers. She doesn’t think she’ll ever fall asleep again.

She doesn’t know why in this moment, the entire universe zeroes in on this one point of warm contact. She has touched Atsumu before. She knows the way she becomes soft and pliant within her arms, knows that her skin smells of oranges and rice, knows how her throat trembles when her breath hitches, and – and so she doesn’t know why this feels so intimate.

Maybe it is because they’re alone and it’s dark and because there’s no one but them to see, that she becomes victim to this violent burst of inexplicable affection.

Sakusa learns that Atsumu snores very quietly and very endearingly, that she sometimes mumbles in her sleep and that a pout stays on her lips all the while. She doesn’t think she wants to ever forget that.

And so she finally gets up, lowers Atsumu’s head onto the cushions, tucks her into the blanket and leaves for her room despite wishing that she stayed and listened to the ebb and flow of her breath until sleep claimed her too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just ... just ........... [?????](https://tenor.com/8z5J.gif) (╥﹏╥)


	5. GREEDY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  yeah, so!!!!! I decided to add the rest to this chapter anyways because it flows better this way. if you read the new update yesterday, the part you already know ends about half-way through. skip to "sakusa is greedy" for the rest.  
>   
> if you don't know what i'm talking about, uh, just enjoy the new chapter! <3  
> 

Now Sakusa, she is entirely self-aware. Sakusa has the ability to reflect. Is a master at it, in fact. She _knows_ she has a crush. She knows it’s ever-present and all-consuming and incredibly annoying, and she knows it’s a bad idea for it to exist, but that’s the problem, it _exists_ and she doesn’t know what the fuck to do with it. She’d leave it alone until it goes crawling out the back door, but unfortunately, it stands to attention every time Atsumu dares to even breathe. Which, well, the woman has dug out a careful cranny in Sakusa’s life and burrowed herself in it.

So yes, she likes seeing Atsumu laugh, the way she throws her head back, then, canines glinting, eyes becoming crescent shapes, likes how abundant with confidence she moves her body, on court and off it, how she is so _attentive_ , eyes sharp at all times; wants to be at the end of that scrutiny. Okay, that’s fine, those are inevitabilities of harboring a crush – but does Sakusa really _have_ to grow weak-kneed at her fucking elbows?

They’re good elbows, she tries to reason with herself, sturdy and soft on the inside, they are pushing their cart around the grocery store, good elbows all around, solid elbows.

It is an elbow she grabbed earlier when Atsumu wanted to walk in the doors without taking a cart and Sakusa held her back, grabbed her elbow, said “Wait, dumbass, we need a cart,” and these elbows are attached to the hands that are now pushing their cart through the store and Sakusa _can’t stop looking at them_. Her fingertips are still tingling.

Is she ridiculous? She thinks so? But thinking, oh, her mind is currently busy with other things, like how amazingly cute Atsumu looks like that, face scrunched up as she tries to decipher Kiyoomi’s scribbles that are supposed to form their grocery list, tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth. She rests her arms on the handle and peeks into the cart. “Think we forgot the cheese back there. Get tomatoes while ye’re at it! Oi, and what’s that supposed to mean? Did yer cousin write this, the 4-year-old?”

“Ice cream. The three liter tubs.”

“Aww,” Atsumu teases, “Got yer black little heart broken?”

Kiyoomi rolls her eyes. “I thought you said I didn’t have one. Hush now, you get the rest of the stuff for dinner, I’ll go look for window cleaner.” Her grin stays obscured by her mask. “Try not to get lost again.”

“Fuck off, that was one time! Ya weren’t even there!” But a smile tugs at her lips as she leans closer, batting her eyelashes. “Just you wait, I’ll shut ya up tonight, even if I hafta stuff yer mouth full to do it.”

“Oh you’re shutting me up? When you’re in so much more dire need of that than me.”

“I’ll do it, just wait. I make the _best_ Oyakodon, it might be the only thing I’m better at than volleyball.”

“Mmh, I personally thought you’re very good at falling asleep on the couch, hogging my cat all to yourself and very much _not_ making food.”

Atsumu tsk-tsks as she maneuvers the shopping cart back down the aisle. “Nuh-uh, not all my fault.” The cheap fluorescent lights paint shadows on her face, make her skin look grey and dull, her hair greasy, and why is Sakusa still absolutely mesmerized by her? It might have to do with the sparkle in her eyes and the fact that, oh yeah, she has a crush. “Ya told me I should cuddle ‘er. Also, she fell asleep on _me_ , that means she must like me.”

Kiyoomi quickly turns away because she turns as red as the tomato Atsumu is grabbing. “Whatever,” she mumbles, “You probably hexed your fingers, she never takes that well to strangers. I’d trust you to do it just to spite me, you hag. I’ll, um, go through here now, come join me when you have all of the stuff. You don’t know how much flyspeck I’ve had to scratch off of windows with a razor blade.”

She tries to control her breathing in front of the neon-colored rags and sponges. Did Atsumu just say she … likes her? She grabs a pack. Microfiber, smell-resistant, for gentle cleansing. She must’ve meant _something_. Sakusa feels like giggling. Sakusa Kiyoomi, degree in physics, pro-athlete, one hundred and ninety-two centimeters tall, reduced to a _giggle_ because a girl might like her. She wants to bash her own head in.

She grabs the microfiber rags (she likes the turquoise color) right as Atsumu joins her by bumping into her hip with the edge of the shopping cart. “Ow.”

“Oops, sor–ooh my god, that canister of bleach is _huge_! How are ya even supposed to lift that? That’s gotta be 20 liters.” She probes at the handle, picks it up from the shelf without a problem. She gasps.

“You’ve been a professional athlete for more than three years, Miya, I think you should be fine. Also, it’s ten at most.”

“Shut up! I’m havin’ a moment here!” She shakes the jug, eyes glued to the liquid sloshing around, mouth hanging open a bit. She looks up widely grinning, ponytail a mess, and Sakusa _melts_ at the childish glee on her face. “Should I be doing this? Probably not. God, who even _needs_ that much bleach?”

Sakusa sniggers. “You’d have to have about two hundred and thirty sisters to prank.” She grabs a pack of scrub brushes and – ooh, is that a new brand of dish soap?

She looks up, uneasy, when the teasing remark she has come to expect doesn’t arrive. She sees Atsumu staring at her, expression almost … a bit lost. She mechanically sets down the bulky bottle, carefully fits it back into the shelf, a strand of blonde hair falling into her face.

“What?” Sakusa asks. It comes out softer than intended. The lights above them buzz quietly.

“You, um, ya do know that the thing with the hair, that wasn’t…” She weakly gestures around in the air. “’twas just somethin’ stupid I told the press. A story I made up.” She laughs airily. Avoids her eyes. “A lie.”

“Oh. Why?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Doesn’t feel like they deserve to know.”

“Ah.”

Atsumu looks almost shy. “Osamu did dye her hair first. Black, though.” She takes a deep breath. “She thought it looked horrible after. It was seven in the evening. I went to the store and bought shitty blonde box dye and walked into school the next day with brash yellow hair, ‘cause I’d never seen ‘er cry that much before. And, ya know, _I’m_ the crybaby of us two. Samu just laughed at me at the lunch table and pointed fingers and so did everyone else and there was like maybe two people teasin’ ‘er that she looked like a vampire. Two days later, her hair was silver and everythin’ was fine, ‘cept for my split ends. The color stuck with me, though.”

They stare at each other. Atsumu ducks her head first. “To _them_ , the story’s just somethin’ they’ll use as a headline for a stupid online article behind a paywall, but to me it’s…” She trails off. “I dunno. I don’t wanna tell ‘em. That’s it. Nothin’ behind it, really.”

“That’s fine.”

“I don’t lie to you!” she bursts out. “I’m not, like, doin’ it compulsively or some shit. It just started as a way of messin’ with the press cause they were annoyin’, an’ I found out I didn’t mind it one bit. It’s been a while since I told ‘em somethin’ that’s actually true.” She halts. “I think at some point two Atsumus have started ta exist, like … there’s me, and there’s … the other me.”

“I get that. It gives you comfort, doesn’t it? You feel like it protects you.”

Atsumu’s head snaps up. “Yeah!” She stares at her with big eyes. “Yeah … exactly.”

Sakusa smiles a bit tiredly. The writing at the back of the bottle in her hands blurs blue in front of her eyes. “People can’t judge you if they know nothing about you at all. Retreat becomes relief.”

“I … I know what you mean.”

“I suppose it’s different for you. You throw someone else at them and stay behind, whereas I…” _…don’t let anyone even get to the point of being close enough to grasp me._

She doesn’t have to say it out loud to know that Atsumu understands.

Atsumu throws a bottle of window cleaner into their cart and Sakusa makes Atsumu go get another type of cheese and two minutes later, it’s as if the conversation had never happened. But it has, and that leaves something warm in her chest.

As Atsumu holds two packs of cheese under her nose, teases her because _of course Omi-kun is a picky eater_ and then excitedly chatters on about how Samu isn’t, like, _that_ much better of a cook than her, Sakusa catches herself thinking that she doesn’t mind having whatever this is at all.

///

Atsumu groans when she can finally set down their shopping bags on Sakusa’s kitchen counter. “My arms hurt.”

“As I said, you’re a pro athlete, stop whining.” Sakusa slips out of her shoes and goes straight to the faucet.

Atsumu dutifully washes her hands for twenty seconds next to her, getting under her nails and into every crook and cranny, soap foaming. “You just buy way too much cleaning stuff.”

“I’m mad at myself for letting it get to this point. It’s been some time since I had to get so much at once. It goes in that closet over there.”

Atsumu takes a handful of crinkling plastic and shuffles into the direction of the door Sakusa is pointing at. She shrieks when she opens it. “Omi! There’s already three bottles of the same dish soap in here! And five of these rags thingies!” Her cleaning cabinet is a sight to behold, really, bright colors stacked front to back, almost up to the ceiling. Sakusa would probably survive a whole pandemic in there. She sets the stuff down on the washing machine before squeezing it into the shelves.

“As I said, I’ve let myself go.”

“You’re weird,” Atsumu says as she comes back out, but she smiles. The smell of laundry from last time is gone, today she picks up on a fresh note of–

“Come here baby!” Sakusa coos. Atsumu has to do a double-take and _yes_ , there’s Anastasia waltzing into the kitchen. Sakusa swoops her up into her open arms and Atsumu gulps because of course Sakusa didn’t call _her_ baby … but it’s still … doing things to her. Sakusa boops Anastasia’s nose. “Did you miss me? Huh? Did you scream for food while I was gone?”

She meows.

“Spoiled little brat.” She kisses the top of her head. “We’ll let Atsumu put away our food and I’ll go look for yours, how does that sound?”

Atsumu stands to the side, eyes wide open, having trouble processing Sakusa cradling Anastasia while whispering sweet nothings in her ear. Is this real life?

“Something wrong?” Sakusa calls over. Anastasia’s fur meshes with her black curls where she’s smushed against her cheek. Two pairs of eyes scrutinize Atsumu equally. Her mind is very empty. She shakes her head and goes to stock the vegetables in the fridge.

When she turns, something red catches her eye, and she perks up and grabs her phone from where it’s peeking out from under a sack of potatoes. “I told’ya that I left it on the counter!” She turns it on, thrums her fingers on the case with the puppies that Osamu gave her for her birthday last year. “But ya were so convinced that I– the fuck?”

“What’s wrong?” Sakusa calls over. She’s multitasking, bent over to refill the cat’s bowl, threading deft fingers through shiny fur and looking heart-wrenchingly adorable.

Atsumu frowns at the flurry of new messages in her notifications tab, one coming in after the other to the point of the whole thing glitching up. She slaps the device. “I dunno, there’s people tagging me in something? And my agent called sixteen times.”

Sakusa sits up. She worries at her lip. “Well, call her back, then.”

“Did you get anything?”

“I turned mine off, there’s never service in that grocery store on the corner.”

The line rings only for the fraction of a second before Atsumu’s agent picks up. “Thank god. Where were you?” She laughs, high-pitched and entirely stressed. “Why do I ask. The grocery store, of course. Oh god.”

“What the fuck? Why do you know that?”

“Someone, um, filmed you? Shopping? Posted it online. We’ve been doing damage control for the past half hour.”

“Damage– _what_? We didn’t do anything? We just … bought some eggs and rice.”

“That’s kind of it. Everyone thinks that you were shopping for, um…” She clears her throat. “A night in.”

“Well, yeah? I promised Omi-Omi I’d cook for ‘er, like, two months ago. So we went to get some stuff.”

“Not _that_ kind of night in.” She pauses. “They think you’re … involved.”

“Involved? Involved in what?”

Sakusa looks up from her own phone, eyes wide.

“They think you’re in a relationship.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Well, are you?”

“No!” she yelps.

“What’s going on?” Sakusa quietly asks.

“I don’t know!” Atsumu slams the phone down on the counter.

“Oh, is Sakusa-san there? Hi, I’m Misaki. You two are viral.”

“Huh?”

Atsumu rakes both hands through her hair. “Please, just … tell us what’s going on.”

“Someone filmed you getting groceries, the video is a short snippet of you bickering and talking about your plans for the evening. It really, really seemed very domestic, as if there was some kind of date night going on. The Jackals’ PR team tried to take the video down, but it’s already all over the net. People are jumping to conclusions, naturally, and, um, the last photoshoot sure didn’t help. Everyone’s kind of freaking out.”

Atsumu blinks. “They think we’re fucking.”

Sakusa winces.

“Yes, basically.”

“We hafta … release a statement! Tweet somethin’ out? What are we supposed to do?”

There’s silence on the other end of the line.

“Misaki?” Atsumu probes.

The line crackles. “Maybe … nothing?”

“ _Misaki_.”

“Hear me out.”

“Ye’re not sayin’ what I think ye’re sayin’.”

“Most of the feedback is positive! Have you gotten a chance to look at Twitter yet?”

“No, ‘cause I was in the _grocery store_. Doin’ somethin’ mundane and simple an’ personal that ain’t anyone else’s business, for fucks sake. No, I didn’t look at Twitter.”

“You know, people have been wondering, even before this.”

“So?”

“So, the team’s merch sales have received a considerable uptick in the last few minutes only, your social medias are blowing up and we’ve already gotten a lot of requests for interviews. This is all very good publicity for you and the team.“

“Oh right.” Atsumu laughs bitterly. “Think of the merch sales.”

“Just … continue what you’re doing right now? Wait for how things progress. I’m not asking you to pretend to be in a relationship or act all lovey-dovey or even play it up in front of the camera.”

“But ye’re askin’ something of us.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No. No, I won’t do it.”

“Okay.” She sighs in defeat. “I thought this would–“

“Wait.”

Sakusa has been silent up until now. Atsumu swivels around to face her. “Wait what?” she barks out.

“Just … think about this for a second.”

Atsumu can’t read the look on her face. “Omi, I won’t _think_ about this. This ain’t … I’m not a zoo animal. I’m fine with bein’ chipper and friendly and smiley with the interviewers cause it’s expected of me, but I won’t fake my love life. Are ya dense? I’m a person, ya can’t honestly expect me to want this. I … we …” Her voice breaks. “I talked to you about this an hour ago. Don’t make me regret it.”

Sakusa stands there like a deer in headlights, shoulders drawn up and the look in her eyes almost frightened. She quietly shuts the fridge door that had gaped open up until now.

“I’ll just … go?” Misaki says.

Atsumu hangs up. “What the fuck? You never even wanted to have anything to do with me!”

“But I do,” Sakusa says.

It punches the breath out of Atsumu’s lungs. “No,” she says, voice wobbly, “No, we won’t do this. I know I told’ya I’m lyin’ to them all the time, but this is different, this is fucking ridiculous. My life ain’t a game of will-they-won’t-they, and I’m not in primary school where everyone is pointin’ and gossipin’ who’s going out with who!”

“What… Of course we’ll release a statement!” Sakusa laughs shakily. She turns halfway to stare at the sink and takes a deep breath. “Of course. I just meant…” She snaps her mouth shut. Her next words come reluctant and tough like tar as if she had to physically convince herself to get them out. “I don’t want to stop doing these … modeling things with you,” she forces out. “If you don’t.” Her voice dwindles.

Atsumu’s eyes grow wide. “Oh. _Oh_. You mean, you actually want to…”

“Yes.” She doesn’t say anything more, but Atsumu thinks she catches a sliver of shyness as Sakusa casts her eyes down.

“Omi…” Atsumu sighs and looks down at her phone clutched tightly in her hand. “Ya know that it probably won’t change anythin’ if we say something now and just continue, right? People have started assuming and they won’t stop.”

“So?”

Atsumu balls her hands into fists. “So what?” Her voice comes out shaky.

Those dark eyes roam her face. “So it’s fine, right? Fuck them. It’s not like it means anything. They can think what they want, as long as we know that we’re … we’re not what they think we are. You said it yourself.”

 _There was just_ someone _there, and I was allowed to touch them._

Atsumu squeezes her eyes shut. “I thought ya didn’t even like touchin’,” she sneers. Maybe she’s cruel. But so are those words that have haunted her for days now. Please, she has to know. She is terrified of the answer, but she has to know. She grips the edge of the counter. “What do you mean when you say it doesn’t mean anything? Cause it sure as hell seems to me that it means somethin’ if ya go from closing yerself off like Alcatraz to … to … slingin’ yer arm around my waist and nuzzling my neck.”

It has to mean something. Atsumu doesn’t know what she’d do if it didn’t.

“Christ, you’d like me to spell it out, do you?” She laughs, and it’s a bit hysteric.

Atsumu’s heart is pounding in her chest. Yes, yes she would. Very much.

Sakusa angles her head. Dark curls fall into her face, and she doesn’t push them back. Her eyelids flutter as she searches for words. Atsumu hangs onto every tremor and twist of those damned lips as they’re slowly curling into an impish smile. “Atsumu, I like the way we crash into each other, I want to grab you and never let you go. When you’re close to me, I remember what the warmth of a person feels like. Is that what you want to hear?”

Desperate, fierce hope flutters deep in Atsumu’s chest.

Sakusa’s teasing smile falls. Her gaze is indecipherable, voice quiet when she finally talks. “With you, touching becomes easy.”

Is Atsumu allowed to have this?

Is she really? Oh god, she can’t breathe, she could have this, she could have Sakusa touch her, want her, _like_ her, she could … have her. Something unfurls within her, grandiose and thrilling, delirious, it buries itself deep in her chest and settles. Makes breathing both harder and so much easier.

“And the rest?” God, she’s praying. Wants to punch a hole into a wall scream into it how happy she is. Or something. “Do we say _fuck you_ to them about that too? Just go for it?”

“The rest? What do you mean by that? It’s not like there’s much of a rest to go by.”

Her heart drops.

The silence stretches.

Dread, dizzying, quivering dread.

 _The rest._ Far looks across locker rooms, taunts that don’t stick because they’re too impersonal, an awkward pause when the two of them find themselves in a room alone? She wants to scream. Has she missed something?

Sakusa inclines her head. There’s something searching in her gaze. “A rest? Is that … something you want?” Atsumu realizes that she’s been silent for a long time.

She wants to cry. Her voice is steady. Cheerful, even – as it should be. “Of course not, Omi! And you don’t either. We're perfectly fine as we are, aren’t we. We're friends. You like touching.”

Atsumu can taste the bitterness of those words in her own mouth. Sakusa doesn’t comment on it. “I do,” she says quietly.

She does. Of course she does.

“Okay, then. We’ll touch. Good.” It’s not. It’s not good.

“I … wait, do you, I mean … just…” Sakusa massages her temples, eyes scrunched up, for once at a loss for words. She startles when the cat noses at her leg, bends down to pick her up, holds her too close to her chest. She strokes almost frantically over her back, avoiding Atsumu’s eyes. Is that what it is, does she feel bad? Pity? She must know how Atsumu feels, god, she’s made it more than obvious. Sakusa exhales. Her hands have stilled. “Fine. So that’s the verdict? We continue the modeling. Tell everyone that we’re just friends. What do we do about the rest?”

Atsumu flinches at the word. “I thought ya said there was no rest. Can’t do anythin’ about it if it doesn’t exist, do we?”

“That’s not what I meant, Atsumu, and you know it.”

Oh god, she called her Atsumu, why the fuck would she call her Atsumu? “Oh do ya want to tell me something?” Atsumu sneers. “That ya have a cute little crush on me? Fell in love with my beautiful face? Wanna kissy-kiss?”

“You’re being defensive.

“I’m not being defensive!”

Sakusa stares at her, silently. Atsumu just feels like shit.

She pushes herself off the counter, limbs heavy and mind reeling. Their groceries are still scattered across it. Atsumu should be used to it by now, people not wanting her, not really. God, she should have expected this. Why did she think she might be able to convince Sakusa to not just tolerate her but reach out to her, see her? Be anything but another acquaintance of that other Miya Atsumu? Want more than her touch? “That settles it, then. Go tell your agent, I think she’s had a heart attack by now anyways. I think I’ll go.”

Sakusa straightens. “Oh no, you don’t have to–“

“I think I should go.” She’s already halfway across the room, turns back to give her a tense smile. “Bye, Omi. Don’t cry too much because you won’t get to eat my oyakodon. Bye, kitty.”

Anastasia mewls.

“Are we still on to try that new ramen place tomorrow after gym?”

“Sure.”

She then stands in the hallway for a while, stares at the door, remembers the string that had tugged at her so delicately right here. It’s hope that she had felt, soaring hope, it had been there even before she’d known it.

She falls against the door with a thud, almost crumbles to the ground. She thought she might actually … get to have this, _this_ , something like this. Insult Sakusa and get a giddy smile in return, talk to her about window cleaner and cheeses and dinner, every day, pull her in by the waist and mouth a lost compliment to the skin of her bare shoulder just because. But of course there is no _rest_ for her.

She opens her eyes, studies the neighbor’s plastic plant. Touching becomes easy, huh? Easy. Maybe easy means exactly what it means, that Atsumu is convenient, has familiar, warm hands, sees dark eyes and a soft heart in a hard shell and _falls_.

It had all started with the touching. And ended there, apparently.

She thought it meant _something_ to Sakusa, but apparently … not. Oh god, she thought it meant something.

Talking to Sakusa, encouraging her to open up, becoming putty under her careful ministrations. Hearing _I’m glad you convinced me to become friends_ before falling into slumber. God, did she do something weird in her sleep? She probably did something weird in her sleep. She just knows that she woke up on the couch with a crick in her neck and a bundle of black crushing her chest. Coffee on the stove. She also knows that she’d never felt better.

And Sakusa had a faint blush on her cheeks as she watched her eat a sparse breakfast, insisted that she keep the clothes because they’re old anyways, and apologized that she had to head out but I can bring you home, I’ll take the car? All of it coated in gruffness and stupid teasing insults, so distinctly _Sakusa_ it made her want to scream.

How can anyone fault Atsumu for thinking it meant something? Oh, how fast euphoria can wilt. Fragile little thing.

Why didn’t she object?

She could have said no. She could have said no, that’s not fine, no, that’s not okay with me. No. It’s better to not have you at all than have you like this.

Don’t get her wrong, she _tries_ to object, even now. She tries to forget that Sakusa’s not that much of an asshole, just shy, that she likes sleeping in ratty oversized t-shirts that smell of soap and that her hair is just like her cat’s fur, unruly and coarse looking yet nothing but soft around careful fingertips. She tries to forget, but she can’t.

So she’ll take what she can get.

///

**_omi’s freaky wrists @kikiyoomi_ **

_hh-hello?? ?? @ 0:52 when atsumu leans closer an darts her tongue out?I? omi looks liske she wants to DEVOUR HER oh my god,,,, these bitches GAY_

|

**_every tweet is a cry for help @xxhorndoggyxx_ **

_cmon guys you’re in a grocery store_

|

**_hoshiumi isn’t ugly you’re all just cowards @eteareal_ **

_skkdfjksld “I’ll shut you up”????? yeah I’m sure you will, tsumtsum. I’m sure you will. stuff her mouth all ya want_

|

**_college “M”tuff “V”y “P”ussy @z00tfucker_ **

_this is so SOFT i want to CRY this is UNFAIR i want a love like that how DARE them_

///

Sakusa is selfish, she realizes, and greedy.

Atsumu is bright and vibrant and thrilling, and she is something that Sakusa is involuntarily drawn to. Well, maybe _involuntarily_ isn’t the right word, because she very much _wants_. She is selfish, because she pushes for them to appear in a shoe commercial, one for _underwear_ , even, and be the face next to Atsumu’s gracing the front of _Onigiri Miya_.

She’s selfish because that means she’s allowed to touch Atsumu, even though the woman might not like her to. God, she feels so bad for doing it.

Atsumu always agrees.

Sakusa’s greedy because it still isn’t enough.

They run on an athletics track, shoes squeaky and new against red rubber and the cutting wind. Atsumu reaches out and takes her hand, she throws her head back and _grins_ , soles thundering against the ground and heartbeat pounding in their veins. Atsumu tumbles down with her, limbs tangled in a sweaty mess, blonde hair a fan of golden silk in harsh November light. Atsumu lets her hands remain against her hips, hot flesh pulsating with the energy of movement. Rapid breath puffs white against her lips. They lie there for a while, shoes front and center, posed in all different directions, and no one sees that in the background, they are linking pinkies. Atsumu’s cheeks are red, Sakusa’s probably are too.

And then they’re done, they tell them they’re done, and Atsumu, she scoots away and up, she stands aside, eyes lingering somewhere afar. Sakusa buries her hands in her pockets and saunters up to her, and Atsumu absentmindedly hands her the packet of wet wipes. Their fingertips brush, warm, brisk, electric. Atsumu recoils as if burned. Sakusa mumbles a thanks.

Atsumu’s bright-eyed and giggly at the lingerie shoot, and fluid like water when they ask her to join Sakusa on the bed who’s lying back, limbs fallen to the side. Atsumu melts into her embrace. So much skin, there’s so much skin, planes of milky white, curves of taut softness, the jutting out of sharp bones easily smoothed over with a fingertip. Atsumu’s hands are a bit sweaty, too. She seems perfectly content there caged between her thighs, an arm slung back around Sakusa’s neck, her hand resting searing hot on her knee, the side of her stomach, her calves, she’s everywhere. She wiggles until there’s no amount of air between them, just space.

She doesn’t say a word when they make them look at one other, when their faces are too close for comfort but near enough for everything else. They drape themselves around each other as if it didn’t make Sakusa’s heart scorch and her insides flame.

They do write that statement for Twitter, explain that they are simply colleagues and friends, have grown to respect and like one another, but that there’s no relationship beyond that. Atsumu asks her “Why d’ya write Atsumu? Put Miya.”

 _Greedy, greedy, greedy,_ plays in Sakusa’s mind as she fits an onigiri in Atsumu’s mouth and lets her thumb hesitate against the corner of a plush lip for the fraction of a second. Greedy, as Atsumu laughs so hard at a deadpan joke that their heads knock together and she coughs up stray grains of rice stuck in her throat, as she lets Sakusa take her face in her hands and pinch her cheeks while she recovers. As she bolts from her touch when they proclaim “Okay, that’s it, thank you!” and pretends not to notice both Osamu and Sakusa’s eyes on her. She doesn’t really look at the pictures of them embracing, munching, laughing, seems to be counting down the seconds until she can flee the room.

Greed becomes desperation.

Maybe it would be easier if that was it, if it ended there with the off-switch on the camera, that terse smile and the sound of a door closing. But they are friends, so they do go to that new ramen place; just don’t sit on the same side of the booth as they would’ve done before. They watch the new episode of One Piece but don’t huddle under the same blanket. Atsumu is careful around her, and she’s never careful, she’s Atsumu. But when they’re playing, she doesn’t clap her on the shoulder anymore, doesn’t offer a high-five or pull her in for a half-hug.

Because that’s the worst, she does have a cute little crush and she would like to kissy-kiss her beautiful face. She’s not sure about the love part, though.

She’d thought Atsumu might feel the same, thought they’d taken that step into uncharted territory together when they sat on her couch under the same blanket, when the late hour unveiled the unbearable softness in those eyes, when she … took her hand. She thought she had her. But there is no _rest_ , is there?

She feels silly, wholly silly for telling her how much she wanted this, wants this, she feels silly that Atsumu knew and chose to say _okay I’ll let you have that, but that’s it, no further than that_.

She watches as Atsumu frees herself from the group hug with Bokuto and Shouyou. She ruffles the latter’s hair which has gotten a bit tamer since high school. “That’s the fifth time ya’ve tried talkin’ to us about ‘er today. Ye’re in denial, Shou-kun, just pure denial.”

“Ew, I don’t have a crush on that dumbass!” Shouyou squeals and pinches her hip. “It’s just Tobio, that’s icky!” Atsumu just laughs louder.

Bokuto claps her on the back and Atsumu tumbles with the impact, grabs Shouyou’s shoulder in order not to keel over. “As if it wasn’t _you_ needing our help, Tsum-Tsum, how long has it been since you were on a date?”

Hinata nods excitedly and clamps down on her hand. “I agree! Too long! We need to find you someone. Let’s go dancing on the weekend or something!”

Atsumu pats her hand before releasing it, smiling good-naturedly. “Oh believe me, I’m perfectly fine bein’ my lonely old self. Who needs love if it makes ya this disgustin’? _Yes_ , this is about you an’ Akaashi.” She elbows Bokuto in the side who yelps indignantly and catches her in a headlock. Atsumu howls in delight.

Sakusa looks down at her leather-clad fingers and tunes out the noise. It’s all about touching, isn’t it?

It’s easy. _God_ , for her it’s easy.

“Oi!”

Atsumu’s face is still red, her hair hopelessly ruffled. She stands a good meter away from her. “Ready to go? You can drop me off at the Vietnamese restaurant down the road today, I’m goin’ to ‘Samus’s and told’er I’m bringing takeout. Ah! I hafta tell ya about what she did yesterday, the fuckin’ idiot.”

So she stands there and starts her idle chattering and Sakusa really has to go, and her fingers twitch because she wants to reach out and grab Atsumu by the arm and pull her out the door but she _can’t_ , so she says “Cool,” inclines her head, dangles her keys and starts walking, waiting for her to follow. “And what happened then?”

It doesn’t seem fair to be doing this when Sakusa feels so much _more_. When touching is just touching to Atsumu but it’s not to Sakusa. She should tell her, she really should, but then those eyes flash in front of her, the absence of a glimmer in them, the distressing, fragile absence of a glimmer in them, and she shudders. She doesn’t tell her.

So she’s also a coward, she discovers. She’s so much of a goddamn coward. But if cowardice means that she gets to touch Atsumu sometimes at least, she doesn’t care.

///

They’ve gotten used to helping each other stretch before practice, and they haven’t stopped since the incident. Atsumu doesn’t know why. Maybe it is because the gym, the laughter of their teammates in the background, makes it feel like something _professional_ too, a necessity, upholds a modicum of decency. Makes her feel like she’s allowed although she isn’t.

She doesn’t really want to know why they don’t stop, Atsumu just knows that she asks and that Sakusa obliges. She keeps herself from letting her fingers stray, skirt over skin that she knows is soft.

And Sakusa touches her, she does, strangled and stiff just like Atsumu had done a moment before. She pulls back too soon. Atsumu imagines that those long bony fingers falter at her waist before they resume their intended line. As if they remembered the path they’d already taken.

“Push harder, you can do it. Angle your foot to the left, it helps.”

 _I don’t think I can do this_ , she wants to say to her. “Oh wow, it does,” comes out.

She arches her back, bends her knee, extends her arms. Folds in on herself. Sakusa’s hands are all over her, controlled in a way she doesn’t want them to be, and it doesn’t mean anything, _it doesn’t mean anything_.

“The extra time you put in pays off. You’ve never been able to reach that far before.”

_You make me want to whimper because you’re so close, you’re right there, and yet out of reach. Fuck you, Sakusa Kiyoomi._

The burning outline of her form presses into her back.

Atsumu is suffering. That is the only word adequate to describe her condition.

She has never wanted like this. Maybe it is because she’s never been wanted like this. Or imagined to be, at least.

It’s easy to feel wanted, to feel wanted in your entirety when you’re drunk and rambling and she gifts you a tired, fond smile and also her most comfortable shirt, when she very much knows that you’re a jackass and still wants to go shopping for window cleaner with you, when she tells you about the pet chick Tora she had as a child whose death made her sniffle for weeks and who is the reason as for why raw eggs still make her kind of uneasy. It’s easy to feel wanted when a gentle prodding of her fingertips makes shivers erupt on your skin and a blush rise on her face.

But then again, she should have seen it coming. _There was just_ someone _there, and I was allowed to touch them._

Ah, that’s it, that’s the story of Miya Atsumu, to be someone _to_.

And Sakusa does want her, just not all of her. But Atsumu will take what she can get, all that Sakusa is willing to give her. If she wants her like this, she has her like this. Even if it hurts. (It hurts so much.)

When has Atsumu started to want? When has volleyball ever not been enough?

The whistle sounds. Coach says something to the other drill group, and Atsumu side-steps their athletic trainer. She pulls off her hair tie on the way to the lockers.

The steam curls around her as she comes back from the showers. “Look here, Tsumu! They published your new shoot!” Shouyou cuts off careful stripes of adhesive tape, Inunaki folds them into neat little double-sided squares, Adriah sticks those to the poster and the poster to the wall.

Bokuto’s reading tweets out loud. She’s having the time of her life. “I’m just saying,” she begins, “I wouldn’t mind having some of that oyakodon myself if you know what I mean.” She sniggers. “In parentheses: her pussy.”

“I’m surprised you know the word parentheses,” Sakusa calls over while rubbing her hair dry. She folds the towel neatly after. It would be easy to miss the tiny smile pulling at her lips.

“Don’t be mean,” Bokuto whines, “’Kaashi’s, like, so smart, it must’ve rubbed off on me.”

Atsumu snorts. “Yeah, I’m sure she _rubbed off_ on you.”

“Yeh, actually, the other night we–“

“Bokuto!” five people groan in unison.

She just raises her hands. “Alright alright, I’ll just continue my foray into stan twitter, then!”

“Foray? Why does she know _words_ all of a sudden?” Sakusa mouths to Atsumu whose heart still hasn’t learned not to leap whenever she looks at the other woman. She doesn’t know if it’s worse that things are only sometimes weird. If she were to quit cold turkey, if Sakusa was simply cut out of her life, wasn’t the fresh plump grapes to her Tantalus, she might be able to cope better. She might, but she also doesn’t want that.

She doesn’t want any of this, actually, but she just has to make do, doesn’t she? So she accepts the occasional rushes of familiarity that take her breath away and that don’t seem to do the same for Sakusa. But that’s what she signed up for, when she told her that it was–

“ _Please shut me up all you want, Mommy Miya. With your mouth, please._ ”

Atsumu bangs her head against the bench she sits on.

“That’s very unhygienic,” Sakusa chips in.

“Fuck you, Omi-Omi.”

“Swap the ‘you’ with ‘me’, and you guessed about half of what these tweets here are saying. The other half is about you, of course. I think these people forgot how to talk when they saw your lingerie photos? You can’t even read the replies. Lots of asdfjlksdf and hfsdfhds. Also, how are they still referencing that grocery store video?”

“First off, those sounds you just made were _unholy_ , Bokkun, and secondly, why would’ya call ‘em _lingerie photos_? Oh my god!”

“They’re photos and you’re wearing lingerie!” she defends herself.

“She does have a point,” Sakusa accedes and Atsumu can’t suppress the laugh that bubbles up from deep within her chest.

The paper crinkles as Adriah smooths it over. Their blown-up cover for Vogue Korea is now hanging on the wall that serves as a documentation of their modeling career. While completely blank at the beginning of the season, space was running out by the end of January. Some shoots have even been taped over already. The newest addition is a pair of eyes lined in blue and another in green staring down at them. Their cheeks are smushed together, a pronounced orange blush sitting high on both their cheekbones. Slack lips red and glossy and fresh. They almost touch.

Atsumu’s smile fades. This is easy, bickering in a locker room with their friends – but everything else isn’t.

“God damn,” Inunaki says, “You’re so fucking pretty in this. Editorial, or whatever they call it.”

“I prefer the GQ one,” Adriah declares, and points to it in the upper right corner. It’s half blocked out by their energy drink promotion. “The whole streetwear goth thing really did it for me.”

“What about Navijo sunscreen?” Bokuto sighs and looks at where their bronzed curves demand attention and space. “And the sunglasses you got were really cool.”

“I guess they were,” Atsumu mumbles.

“Anyways, Atsumu, crush me between your thighs like a bee. Sweet nectar and all that.”

“ _Ew_ , Bokkun.” She scrunches her face up. “That’s just disgustin’.”

“…I know Omi-Omi has a big one, I just _know_.”

“Huh?”

“I have something round and plump that’s begging to be hit, Miss wing spiker Sakusa Kiyoomi.”

Miss wing spiker chokes and turns bright red.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Atsumu says and snatches the phone out of Bokuto’s hand. “Where are ya _findin’_ this shit?”

“Don’t you read the replies to your tweets?”

“Well yeah, but they’re never this shameless.” She laughs out loud. “Run me over with a bike I’m GAY.”

“Relatable,” Shouyou quips. “I haven’t been functional since I saw Tobio making out with a girl in that bar. I didn’t even know she liked girls!”

“She once said in an interview that her favorite place is on your lap, Shou-kun.”

She blushes. “Shut up, straight platonic friends say that stuff, like, all the time.” Her eyes grow wide. “But she isn’t straight. And I’m not either! She kissed a girl! And I’m happy but also mad it wasn’t me?”

“So are ya finally admittin’ that ya have feelings?”

“A crush!” Shouyou squeals, “A _crush_ , and I told you that in _confidence_. Not _feelings_ , just a stupid little crush that maybe started to exist in high school and is maybe still here. Crush!”

Atsumu chuckles, tapping absentmindedly on the phone in her hands, swiping away a message Akaashi sent. “Tell her that when she’s in yer lap again, I’m sure she won’t mind.” Her smile drops.

**_msBI @bokkhore_ **

_right so ik we all know they’re fucking but!! the panic on atsus face at 1:15 when they ask her to kinda touch omis boob from the side??? gold. also, all of us_

|

**_meians biceps @grrlsmoth_ **

_thanks for representing the useless sapphics demographic. it’s a pleasure to have ya, tsumu_

|

**_no thoughts head empty just women @gaylittlefrog_ **

_god I’m so jealous. of both of them. very unfair of them to exist_

|

**_“nice kill” me pls @tobiosmilkbox_ **

_ikr I hate their stupid muscly bodies and perfect smiles and adoring teasing?? love? in this economy? blocked and reported_

“God, I forgot how fuckin’ _ballistic_ everyone went after our statement,” she mumbles. Actually, she hadn’t forgotten, just chosen not to think about it for a prolonged period of time. Having been an active user of social media before, her accounts lay pretty much deserted for weeks now.

Of course the statement hadn’t improved anything but instead fueled the fire. Maybe it would have been better had they just confirmed a relationship and dealt with the following influx of cute domestic fanart. Now they get an influx of cute domestic fanart and also thousands of people on Twitter dissecting their every present and past interaction.

They haven’t talked about it, of course they haven’t. The whole thing started back in December, and now they have February, and they haven’t talked about it.

But then again, what would Atsumu tell her? That she lately almost always thinks about her; in bed at night when she’s bored and can’t fall asleep, or in the morning when she wakes up to sunshine in the face and a cold pillow next to her, or after a particularly grueling training session in the sho– she’s doing it, she’s doing it, why is she doing it?

God, she can’t stand to be in here. The amalgamation of stale sweat, deodorant and shower smell, while at other times comforting, makes her want to gag. It’s too loud, too hot, too small. Too much Sakusa standing in the corner looking ethereal and glorious and so beyond reach with her wet hair slicked back and the tension in her shoulders gone down the drain together with the hot water. She’s humming some song under her breath.

Atsumu abruptly turns. Instead of pulling off the rest of her sweaty clothes, she gets her jacket and zips it all the way up, retrieves her hair tie from the pocket and slams her locker shut. The other people in the room visibly startle.

“I’m running home,” she announces.

They all stare at her for a second.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I can give you a lift back, I came in my car this morning again.”

She’s beautiful, and why are her eyes so earnest? There is no malice behind them, that’s the worst part of it, there’s no malice. She just doesn’t want her that way.

Her heart breaks.

“Aw, Omi-Omi, who knew ya cared!”

“No Tsumu, she’s right, isn’t that kind of far?” Bokuto scratches her neck. “You’re all worn out from training. And they said it’d be raining tonight.”

“Don’t ya worry about me.” Atsumu ruffles Shouyou’s hair on the way out. “I’ll be fine. See ya.”

The heavens open their gates when she’s about half of the way home. She curses and runs faster, ignoring her protesting legs and burning lungs.

She thought she’d be fine with it, thought that having Sakusa in these precious moments was better than not at all, but she just can’t bear it. She stumbles and falls to the ground. Hot pain hisses through her knee. “Fuck!” she screams into the pouring rain.

She’ll get sick, but she’s just so _tired_. The gravel digs into her thigh and she presses on her knee to catch a faint drum of pain. What a shit fucking day. Her tears are lost in the raindrops.

She limps the rest of the way, more out of exhaustion and the absence of caring than the ache in her knee. Her hair is plastered to her head, she’s wet and disgusting and cold. The wind pulls at her, howls in her ear, and she wishes for nothing and no one to be in the streets tonight. Just two more turns, then she’s at her apartment complex. She curses when she stumbles _again_ , yet this time not because of a crack in the road but a brown flash, a spot of muddy orange that has retreated behind a dumpster. Her heart cracks. Oh no.

The cat sits crumbled in on itself, a tiny huddle of wet fur, dark eyes glinting dully. God, it’s so thin. When Atsumu comes closer, it only shivers. Thunder rumbles in the background.

“God fucking dammit, I hate my life so much.”

The cat lets itself get coaxed into Atsumu’s apartment with fish.

It doesn’t come near on the way up but trails after her, sniffing at the floor, dragging one feeble limb behind another – it hesitates at the open door. It takes another piece of salmon for it to hurtle into the room.

And Atsumu’s sad and angry and tired and told herself that she needs distance, but as the shivering lanky thing looks up at her from behind the coat hanger dripping _misery_ , she still hits call. “Kiyoomi,” she chokes out. “I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man, i just wanted some soft goofy pining wlw content, how are we here. genuinely did not expect this fic to 1. get this long and 2. have angst. but one of its main themes is longing, and angst is just a side dish of that, i suppose. it won't get too bad, i promise!! tehehe


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